House of Eratosthenes

Ye Gods, this does get tiresome. It would have been an accurate — and effective, from the looks of things — campaign slogan across my entire mortal existence now, or much of it anyway, and I’m no spring chicken: “Who cares if our policies are like rust on the wrought-iron of the economy, you have to vote for us for womens’ right to choooooooose!”

I like Instapundit‘s headline: “Democratic Convention To Become Celebration of Abortion Rights.”

Dem Convention becomes anti-Akin affair

With an eye on Rep. Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments and the GOP’s mad dash away from the sinking Missouri Senate candidate, the Democrats are turning their upcoming presidential convention into a pro-choice assault on the Republicans with the help of major abortion supporters.

Just as the Akin crisis was reaching a crescendo, the Democrats on Wednesday announced that three starlets of the pro-choice movement will be featured at the convention, an event that will now drive the liberal charge that the Republicans are anti-women.

Democrats said that they will feature Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parent Action Fund, Nancy Keenan, president of the NARAL Pro-Choice America and Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University student whose plea for federal birth control funding drew the ire–and a subsequent apology–from Rush Limbaugh.

What’s more, the Democrats are expanding their list of women ready to assail the GOP on women’s issue, adding Maryland Sen. Barbara Mikulski and actress Eva Longoria to the list that already includes Sen. John Kerry and Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Well, it is good to have this periodically tested: “Oh, you done stepped in it now you Republicans, just done pissed off the girls! We’re gonna make you pay for that!” Well, we shall see; honey and vinegar, you know. There are two problems with the vinegar approach: One, it doesn’t work as well, and two, the practitioner of the vinegar approach is the last one to realize it doesn’t work as well. Well, there’s a third: The women, apart from Longoria, are pug-ugly. I doubt that they will be speaking in dulcet, soothing tones to make up for this.

This was all the rage in the 1980’s, after the Equal Rights Amendment went down in defeat: Nasty women taking center stage and saying nasty things into powerful microphones with nasty nasal tones. Lest it be forgotten: Sandra Fluke is not an advocate for the right to abortion, she is an advocate for entitlements to contraceptive supplies free of charge. There is a very wide gulf between an entitlement advocacy and a rights advocacy. This is an important distinction to recognize in mainstream America, but the providers of the vinegar are the last to know.

I predict success is possible for them here, but only if they take great care to discuss only the things they want to discuss. After all, their true position is “Every single abortion that might happen, absolutely has to happen.” Their true constituency is: People who, for one reason or another, have made it their business to desire that other people should not have children. Either because they’re spinsters who don’t like to see other women getting married and starting families, or they’re part of VHEMT or similar silliness, or they want the United States to look more like Europe, or they’re profiteering from the abortion industry. Either way, their real beef isn’t with the availability of abortion, but with the abundance of its practice.

Speaking of abundance of practice: This “legitimate rape” thing continues to be discussed with great frequency. I thought nothing of it at first; it is, after all, the most incomprehensible part of the gibberish Akin was spouting on that show. But I’m on some lefty mailing lists, and I couldn’t help but notice when this bulletin rolled on in:

“Rape is rape.” The fact that President Obama needed to explain this to the Republican Party earlier this week says so much about how extreme the other side has become.

It’s only Wednesday, and we already have a lot to report this week.

Take a look at the items below, and share them with your friends and family:

The e-mail then includes a link to President Obama’s comments about the matter, which includes the “rape is rape” line.

The curious thing about this particular tempest is that there is a whole lot of anger being expressed, repeatedly, with very little information being exchanged. You’d think that if the matter was important enough to re-write the whole platform of one of the major political parties, every now and then you might see someone sorta break it down, and say why they think Akin’s comments were offensive. Which Obama, to His credit, did. But I don’t think He’s correct: “Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing, and qualifying, and…uh…slicing…uh…what types of rape we’re talking about, uh, doesn’t make sense to the American people.” We know it makes perfect sense to Whoopi Goldberg. But of course that isn’t mainstream-America; when she stepped in it, it was revealed that there is more than a grain of truth to what Obama was talking about. “Statutory” is a very important qualifier to the guy who’s been accused of this kind of rape, when he thought she was of age and it turned out she wasn’t; but then the girl’s parents are going to bring an entirely different perspective to the matter.

But, key point here: This issue is not that issue. Not unless you think, when Akin said “legitimate,” his intended meaning was “not statutory.” Yeah…didn’t sound that way to me. And I don’t think that’s what democrats have in mind when they send me these e-mails telling me that Akin’s values are Republican values. I think what we’re really arguing about here is the notion that the Tawana Brawley and Duke LaCrosse incidents never happened, where there’s smoke there’s always fire.

I think there are a lot of people incensed about Akin’s comments because “legitimate rape” makes it sound like there’s another kind. It would be hard to pick this up through the cloud of frustration one must feel after having been the victim of a legitimate rape, having gotten actually pregnant from it, and then suffered through listening to this blowhard spew away that it doesn’t happen that way. But it’s one thing to acknowledge that, and quite a different thing to surmise that there’s no such thing as a false rape allegation. Such a thought would be every bit as ignorant as what Akin said.

And the democrats get to run on that, without having to absorb the flak they’d be taking if they were to spell it out word for word — “women don’t lie about this stuff, there’s no such thing as a false rape allegation.” Rape, abortion, contraceptives…run the whole campaign inside the uterus, to distract from Obama’s failed economic record. What happened? I thought the whole push was to get “government out of my uterus” or something. I’ve read Sandra Fluke’s e-mail from top to bottom and it isn’t clear to me what her testimony has to do with Akin’s comments or vice-versa, all they have in common is the gestation process, and some vague and undefined notion of “rights.” Fluke was not testifying about legitimate and illegitimate rape; she was testifying about her and her friends getting free stuff.

Oh well, I get it I get it, support all of what we support or else you’re anti-woman.

It seems lately everything the democrats have to say to anybody, is of the form: “Support/vote for [thing] or else you’re anti-[some other thing].” And, always, there has to be a loss of some liberty somewhere, some freedom. In this case, everybody accused is supposed to enjoy a constitutional right to presumption of innocence. That’s anti-woman now? Because talking about “legitimate rape” is offensive.

Well, bring it on. I’m interested in seeing the consequences of the entire convention being run this way. Obama was supposed to fix everything. And now He’s doing what failed (male) democrats always do, which is to run on the “re-elect me or women will be reduced to womb-slave status”…

I’m not so enthused about the return of the “I believe you Anita!” era. That was a very silly time. Still gives me a headache thinking about it.

Are women really that silly?

I mean, I’m no Don Juan or anything, but I know several humans of the female gender pretty well, and they all seem like sober, rational, reasonable folks…. no more (or less) hysterical and goofy than the rest of us. But a major political party seems to assume that the merest mention of the word “contraception” gives them the hissy fits.

I find that insulting, and it baffles me that more women don’t. Fluke didn’t even bother to hide behind weaselly phrasing — she claimed, in pretty much those words, that we, the taxpayers, are required to give her free shit because, well, obviously. If a man tried this with literally anything we’d be laughed out of the room. Hell, not even the race lobby can get away with this — remember when Jesse Jackson (or whomever) trotted out “welfare is a right, not a privilege”? Yet somehow, 50% of the population — and well over 50%+ and growing of all college, graduate, and professional students — is simply entitled to stuff due to the arrangement of their underwear bits.

Why don’t more women find this insulting? Figure that one out, and we’ll be a lot closer to understanding the liberal mentality.
- Severian | 08/23/2012 @ 08:44
Well I was wondering what they were going to make their platform. I mean they certainly can’t point to a, b, c, d or even e or f and say, “C’mon folks, we’re doing such a fucking bang up job, how can you possibly not want four more years of this shit sandwich”.

I love how they take one dude’s mangled words, as if it represents every single R’s viewpoint, completely ignore that he has been severely denounced and ostracized by his party and decide – now that is what we’re gonn’a pounce on.

As if the dude holds some office already and tells us we need to “redistribute the wealth” and “at some point, you‘ve made enough money“, and “you didn’t build that” small business.

Whose hired a bunch of other folks who idolize communists, don’t pay their taxes, send weapons to Mexico…lend gobs of cash to…what are we up to now?…25 “green” companies that go bankrupt shortly afterwards…spend trillions to “save the economy” that is at a historic (they told us it would be!) number of months of such a slow pace…

And also, lets’ go ahead and make it our number #1 talking point at our convention to reelect the dude who has done NOTHING. Well, except “leading” the operation to kill the dude who wasn’t really a threat to us, ya’ Right Wing Islamaphobes, and only mattered to libs after their boy himself shot ‘em right between the yes.

Why yessiree, that Hope & Change thing worked, let’s go for “They hate womenfolk, reelect Barry and the other dude who we really wish would STFU but we can’t shut ‘em up or it will look like he actually isn’t a elder statesmen that has never been right about anything since he’s been in office for 40 years…Man.”

Desperate times indeed.
- tim | 08/23/2012 @ 09:56
I personally do find this stuff insulting and I used to consider myself a feminist. I don’t think this will play well for them. I stopped identifying myself as a feminist when the movement was taken over by the radical lesbian set. While most women were in favor of equal pay, they discovered that they did not have a lot else in common with the feminist movement. I do not believe that the main concern of women in the US is how to prevent getting pregnant and disposing of that inconvenience if they do. This sounds a lot like the way the Dems think that Hispanics are only concerned about allowing more illegals in the country. It’s as if the Dems have become tone deaf.

As for the rape is rape, well that certainly seems to be how the law views sex offenses these days. We have a friend that was convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense at age 19 (He touched a 14 year old girl’s breast while they were fully clothed.) He served 90 days, combo of house arrest and community service. He’s 42 now and still has to register as a sex offender, although we believe that he can be taken off the rolls and are working with the prosecutor in his case to do that. He was living at a homeless shelter and registered. They kicked him out and he was picked up for failure to register. The court wanted him to take a deal for 4 years in jail for felony failure to register. It’s totally insane. We managed to get them to change it to a misdemeanor failure to register. So, the moral of the story is yes, there are degrees of rape in the same way there are degrees of murder and sex abuse. We all understand that consensual sex between minors may be called statutory rape, but it is not the same as someone raped against their will.
- teripittman | 08/23/2012 @ 12:13

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