Archive for August 14, 2008

Pro-Choice McCain VP?

According to… *ahem*… conservative talk radio, and Faux News, McCain is considering choosing a pro-choice running mate.  Honestly, I’d be shocked if he did.  I consider this an attempt to bluster one’s way into the spot light, and accrue some moderate “street cred” with a little talk and no action.  If turnout is the key to this election – and it is – picking a pro-choice VP would be political suicide for McCain.

Conservapedia Hacked

Conservapedia was just hacked and replaced with viruses.  DO NOT follow any links from this site to Conservapedia; your computer could potentially be infected.

Yes to Democracy – John McCain and the Women

I’ve written about this before, but Christina of “Yes to Democracy” sets the important talking points – the easy, one-liner ways of getting across message – to snappy classical music:

I understand that there do exist anti-feminist women – those paradoxical entities who think that their gender should know its place and, more importantly, want to make those choices for every other American woman.  Certainly, “Dr.” Phyllis Schlafly is one of them.  But how any sane woman cannot see the danger posed to her rights by John McCain is beyond me.

Jerome Corsi – “9/11 Truther” – Can He Be Trusted on Anything?

Talk about witness impeachment on character for truthfulness. Corsi, the “author” of debunked hit jobs and fake-bestsellers “Unfit for Command” and “The Obama Nation,” buys into the whole “government responsible for 9/11″ movement. Check the clip here.

Bad News: to Some, Stephen Colbert Isn’t an Act

Overheard at an Atlanta restaurant: “I’ve had it up to here with those university eggheads.  I see a situation, I go with my gut.  That’s why I love Bush; he’s the kind of man to get something done.”  *glasses clink*

For some – not just for fundamentalists – the difference between parody and serious political insanity is a fine line indeed.

More Chain Letters – “Why I’m Not a Liberal”

Unsurprisingly, there’s a lot of bad information circulating out there on the internet.  There’s also a lot of bad argument.  By taking the time to delve into some of the spin propogated by conservative websites, I hope to offset both, at the minimal price of my sanity and blood pressure, typically raised to unhealthy levels by reading these rags.  Today, a chain-letter style article by “The Patriot Post,” attempting to define what “liberalism” is, and explain why the writer is not in tune with these beliefs.  Where the author doesn’t get liberalism wrong, he gets American history & culture wrong.  Let’s explore.

First off, American history:

I believe that the United States of America, from its inception, has been based on the Judeo-Christian value system, not secular Enlightenment values alone, and therefore the secularization of American society will lead to the collapse of America as a great country.

Did this guy even take American history?  Of the many problems with this assertion, let’s start with the glaringly obvious: as a popular comedian says, I’ve never met a Judeo-Christian. The author’s inclusion of Jews in the alleged foundational American morality seems to be just a post-hoc way of not appearing too racist and sectarian when, really, the author intends to say that his conception of America is as a Christian nation.  Let’s at least say what we mean, buddy.  Further, any passing glance at the historical record will reveal that America was intended by its founders to be the Enlightenment ideal: a democracy free from religious control.  How else does one explain the first amendment? To ignore the Enlightenment’s foundational role in America is to attempt to rewrite the history books and, fascinatingly, reveals the new far-right conservative movement’s true goal, of subverting the gains the Enlightenment secured for all of western society.

From here, it’s downhill.

I believe that a good man and a good marriage are more important to most women’s happiness and personal fulfillment than a good career.

Wow. No doubt there are women who would agree with this sentiment.  But shouldn’t the choice be left up to them, “Dennis”?  This is why I’m a liberal, and a feminist – because I understand that, while some women may prefer to raise a family at home, others will prefer to pursue a career, and that the choice belongs in the hands of the individual woman, rather than a white-haired man.  This unoffensive axiom of choice is the relatively uncontroversial foundation for feminism and for liberalism: how is there disagreement on that point?

I believe that males and females are inherently different. For example, girls naturally prefer dolls and tea sets to trucks and toy guns — if you give a girl trucks, she is likely to give them names and take care of them, and if you give a boy trucks, he is likely to crash them into one another.

Yes: all girls are the same, and all boys are the same, and if they’re not, they should be forced to conform.  Resistance is futile.  It’s important for society to laud the differences between men and women, while not forcing those differences upon those who don’t hold them to be integral to their identity.  America should celebrate the differences between individual men and women, not just between men and women, and this is where the religious/conservative conception of gender roles fails.

I believe that the assertions that manmade carbon emissions will lead to a global warming that will in turn bring on worldwide disaster are a function of hysteria, just as was the widespread liberal belief that heterosexual AIDS will ravage America.

EPIC fail. If global warming will not be disastrous, it’ll be because we take action to prevent its effects: the proper response to agents of doom and gloom is to investigate their concerns for their truth, not ignore them categorically. Whether or not global warming is real, the best response all around is to investigate & begin to offset carbon emissions: if it’s not real, no loss, and if it is real, we will have saved ourselves.  To say nothing of the comment on “heterosexual AIDS” – it’s like this guy is writing off the lives of American gay men and women.  Unsurprising, but sickening.

I believe that, whatever the reasons for entering Iraq, the American-led removal of Saddam Hussein from power will decrease the sum total of cruelty on Earth.

This is the most popular of post-hoc rationalizations for the Iraq War.  We were told that there were WMDs; there weren’t.  We were told that they were harboring terrorists; they weren’t, at least not any more so than Saudi Arabia.  Now we’re told that Saddam’s removal was a boon for humanity.  No doubt.  But, Bush’s own actions – i.e., ignoring North Korea & Iran – gives the lie to the argument that the reason to go into Iraq was to unseat a dictator.  If it was, after all, there would have been other priorities first and, more importantly, the American people probably wouldn’t have authorized the war.  At most, this argument is an attempt to rationalize & make the best of a bad situation.  That’s fine, but let’s call it what it is.  Enter the irony of the next section:

I believe that when it comes to combating the greatest evils on Earth, such as the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations has either been useless or an obstacle.

If the goal of conservatism is to prevent these evils – as the Iraq argument implies – whither the United States on these genocides, too?

There’s worse in this little essay – ethnocentrism & racism, too – but this ought to be enough to prove why this man’s vision of conservatism is a true trainwreck.  There are good versions of conservatism, no doubt, but this isn’t it.  The author inadvertendly ends up listing why American liberals are right.

State-Sponsored Lying to Women: Informed Consent Laws

God and Editor-in-Chief willing, I’m soon to be published in NYU’s Journal of Legislation and Public Policy, for a piece arguing that the Supreme Court’s recent decision on abortion, Gonzales v. Carhart, ((127 S. Ct. 1610 (2007), Wikipedia link here.)) misunderstands science, and gives the legislature carte blanche to use sham science to prop up otherwise unconstitutional laws. ((Nota bene to other law students/academics: if you steal my thesis and beat me to publication, I will destroy you.))  Among other instances of the legislature rubber-stamping sham science, the abuse of “informed consent” laws to require doctors to lie to women seeking an abortion sticks out as the most egregious.

By way of background, since the mid-1990s, ((Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), Wikipedia link here.)) it’s been presumed legal for states to pass laws requiring doctors to tell women, in detail, about the medical details of an abortion.  That’s fair.  It’s within a patient’s rights to know the details of a procedure before they undergo it.  A surgery without consent, after all, is a battery.  The problem enters when “informed consent” becomes a political tool, to scare women out of getting abortions, by showing them gruesome pictures and pumping them full of ideology and Christian morality… or, more egregiously, misrepresenting the science and medicine of abortions.

The last is the most egregious of all.  The relationship between a patient and her doctor is sacrosanct, and for the state to coopt the relationship to feed the woman lies through her doctor’s mouth is inexcusable.  Nevertheless, several states require doctors providing abortions to tell women, through gritted teeth, that abortions can cause breast cancer… ((MINN. STAT. § 145.4242(a)(i)(1) (2007) (requiring notification of the link between abortion and breast cancer “when medically accurate”); MISS. CODE ANN. § 41-41-33(1)(a)(ii)  (2007) (requiring the same); MONT. CODE ANN. § 50-20-104(5)(a)(i) (2007) (providing the same); TEX. HEALTH & SAFETY CODE ANN. § 171.012(a)(1)(B)(iii) (Vernon 2007) (stating no such requirement of “accuracy”).)) even though all credible practitioners & researchers come to the exact opposite conclusion. ((All major scientific groups have reached this conclusion.  See, e.g., American Cancer Society, “Can Having an Abortion Cause or Contribute to Breast Cancer?,” Aug. 6, 2007, available at www.cancer.org (search for “abortion breast cancer” and select the third link) (last accessed Nov. 7, 2007).))

Even worse, some of the same laws have required doctors to tell women that abortions can cause mental illness and depression, which the American Psychological Association has just disproven. ((Study linked here.))  Surely some women may grow to regret having an abortion.  But to presume to so infantalize women as to remind them to look to the future – “now, sweetie, this might hurt a bit” – is insulting and only lays bare the anti-feminist impetus behind abortion restrictions.

The religious right is not kind to women.  This is no surprise.  But, if possible, it’s even less kind to science.

Secondment (Yes to Democracy)

Thanks to Christina of “Yes to Democracy” for inviting me to be a guest contributor (an offer which I’ve happily accepted).  I’ve written my first post over there, on the impact John McCain would have on the U.S. Supreme Court, and why feminist PUMAs’ opposition to Obama makes so little sense.  Please read the rest of the post over there, and never fear, loyal reader(s): my responsibilities over there will not dilute the quality of content over here.