Every day we see more and more bizarre statements from Santorum, Gingrich, and Romney that are so far removed from reality it is hard to know how to respond. All three say that President Obama is going to turn the United States into a socialist state. There is no evidence for this idiotic statement, and none is ever adduced. At the same time, and without irony, they complain that the new health care law reduces funding for Medicare. Santorum said this morning that the United States is alienating every ally and appeasing every enemy. It is hard to know where this comes from. The only ally whose relationship is not MUCH stronger now than it was under Bush is Israel and Pakistan, and that is only because Obama have a much more irascible Netanyahu to deal with and Paksistan is such a freaking mess. The charge of appeasement of enemies is hard to fathom. Killing Osama Bin Laden on Pakistani soil was appeasement? Apparently an apology for soldiers stupidly burning the Koran is appeasement, which is nonsense. A moral person apologizes for his own wrongs even if others have also committed wrongs against him. What else?
What you have from these Republicans is blind hatred of Barack Obama for reasons more or less unrelated to the man or his policies, or anything in reality. This is not how you win an election with persuadable independent voters. This is why the primary is so volatile and strange. It is not based in reality.
This is, at heart, an inside debate by a core Republican electorate that is reacting from the unspoken, unacknowledged feeling that something is going very wrong if a black man is President of the United States of America.
Friday, February 24, 2012
The No-Reality Primary
Posted by The Law Talking Guy at 2:08 PM 3 comments
Monday, February 06, 2012
Quit Politicizing Women's Health
There has been a lot of news the last couple of weeks about changes to medical policies that directly affect women’s health. The most recent has been the Obama Administration’s declaration that all medical care providers who receive federal funding and who serve diverse populations will have to offer birth control. Before that, it was the Susan G. Komen For a Cure foundation. That foundation was going stop paying Planned Parenthood for mammograms.Before that, we've had political discussion about HPV vaccinations.
Everyone just needs to stop politicizing women’s health. I can’t think of a single men's heath issue that is politicized or made such an open subject for public scrutiny. No one is talking about offering condoms or vasectomies to men, both opposed by the Catholic Church. Nothing about Viagra or testosterone supplements. What about reproductive services? Unless something has changed, the Church doesn’t like infertility treatments either. All of these health decisions that MEN and women make daily are private choices. They should not be fodder for religious and political games.
Freedom of religion means that you have the right to choose to practice your faith or not. And you can choose to practice any faith you wish. That said, forcing religiously affiliated institutions to offer an array of health services and reproductive services does not violate religious rights. It simply allows people to have a choice. If I am a practicing Catholic, then I can choose not to use birth control. So what these institutions are really saying is that they don’t want to offer choice because most people would choose “wrongly”.
Religiously affiliated medical facilities and universities should be medical facilities and universities FIRST and religious organs last.
Posted by USWest at 6:44 PM 10 comments
