Pro-abortion feminists defend Bachmann
Let’s be clear. The only – I repeat, ONLY – reason liberals vilify female politicians like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann is because they are pro-life. Were Palin and Bachmann the conservatives they are except pro-abortion, they’d be tolerated, if not embraced.
Nevertheless, I was very disappointed that even liberal feminists piled on Palin in 2008, going so far as to say she couldn’t handle kids and work at the same time.
But apparently their consciences are getting to them, because after Newsweek published this scary and misogynist photo and caption of Bachmann this week…
… they came to her defense.
About the cover Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, told Salon:
It’s sexist…. Gloria Steinem has a very simple test: If this were done to a man or would it ever be done to a man – has it ever been done to a man? Surely this has never been done to a man.
Even Feministing called out Newsweek, going so far as to quote pro-life conservative female icons to buttress the case:
As conservative bloggers have rightly noted, this is a sexist cheap shot. Dana Loesch says, “When your premise is an unflattering photo…to sell your bias, you just might be a chauvinist.” Michelle Malkin asks, “You’ve resorted to recycling bottom-of-the-barrel moonbat photo cliches about conservative female public figures and their enraged ‘crazy eyes?’ Really?”…
Malkin links to a great post by Karrin Anderson exploring the “troubling trend in which political women are critiqued as crackpots and lambasted as lunatics.”
The reason that the image of a crazed female politician is so powerful, and powerfully dangerous, is because it stems from a much older story about women. Whether burning them as witches or dismissing them as b**ches, Western culture has always disciplined women who transgress established societal and political boundaries.…
[T]here’s no question that Bachmann’s views are as hateful, incoherent, and hypocritical as they come. “Batsh** crazy” has become the go-to short-hand during a time when the right-wing is slipping farther from the mainstream than ever before. But it’s ableist, counterproductive, and just lazy, and, as feminists and progressives, we need to do better – and better than we’ve previously done on this very blog.
If you’re trying to illustrate the extremism of a politician’s views and find yourself relying on sexist, ableist tropes that have been used to discredit women since they first started fighting their way into the public sphere, just stop. The odds are good that Bachmann herself will make your point for you.
Yes, call us “batsh** crazy” for the right reasons, 1) for supporting the right of preborn females and males to live, 2) for trying to keep parents from physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual ruin by killing their own children, and 3) for educating about the physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually healthy choice of abstinent/be faithful sexual behavior.
Well I think she looks great and we are out RAGED. You betcha. Look at the pix of the gal who wrote the piece for weak news. she looks hung over.
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Shoot yourselves in the foot much, Newsweek?
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While I find Michelle Bachmann’s policies to be incredibly offensive and dated, I don’t believe that being unprofessional will be advantageous to any opponent of her beliefs. She deserves the same respect that any politician deserves (yuk it up) and she should be treated accordingly.
With that being said, I don’t dislike Michelle Bachmann & Sarah Palin merely because they’re Prolife.
Cheers!
Beth
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Ah, the white, white hot heat of hate from a thousand suns for ANY conservative woman. Is there ANYTHING more offensive than one?
Yes, abortion.
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Gloria Steinem – “because right-wing anti-feminist women so rarely do anything defensible “
That’s right Gloria – we defend the rights of little girls to be born into this world, instead of aborted … and that is in what way not defensible? She thinks to be right wing is to be anti-feminist. She has had it wrong – ALL wrong all these years.
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Don’t be hyperbolic. Liberals don’t dislike Bachman and palin because they are pro-life but because they are AVERAGE. A lot of people think it’s cute to have politicians like them,except they don’t realize that they aren’t fit to be the president either!!!
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Wow, I don’t understand why you have to go after someone’s looks to disagree with their views. I dislike 90% of what Bachmann says, but I, would never dream of putting her down.
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She pretty much looks insane or on drugs in every picture I’ve seen of her, so this isn’t really that bad. Still, I’d take her crazy facial expressions over Sarah Palin’s dead-eyed, vacant stare. At least they show some sparks of life.
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Newsweek was sold for $1 and frankly they overpaid.
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I’m sorry, but things like this are done to men all the time. I don’t think we’d have any problem finding unflattering photos of George w. Bush. And, remember the fuss about Howard dean’s “scream?”
Plus, it’s not a bad photo of the congresswoman anyway.
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They absolutely would not be embraced. They are both intensely homophobic, anti-immigration, anti minimum wage, racist, and classist.
They both embody so much of what is wrong with america right now, and only a small portion of that is their anti-choice stance.
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I mostly agree with you, Jane. Weird. I can’t see them ever being accepted with their conservative social stances.
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Hal, you’re right about that. Look at the cover Newsweek did on Romney.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/06/newsweeks-mitt-romney-mor_n_871684.html
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Hi Jane,
I think your comment embodies so much of what is wrong with America right now. You must be one of those “tolerant” types, right?
intensely homophobic=for traditional marriage
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Some of the things she says seems to me to go beyond just traditional marriage into intolerance territory. That is just my humble opinion though.
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Such as?
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Shannon: “Don’t be hyperbolic. Liberals don’t dislike Bachman and palin because they are pro-life but because they are AVERAGE. A lot of people think it’s cute to have politicians like them,except they don’t realize that they aren’t fit to be the president either!!!”
So, how has that exceptional lightworker Obama been workin’ out, Shannon? Oh that’s right — we can’t tell, because the long shadow of Bush’s bequeathments is obscuring the glory…
When liberals become better judges of their recondite exemplars, we inbred provincials will start frettin’ ’bout our folks a bit mo’. ;-)
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CatholicVote blog has a great pictoral article, showing Newsweek‘s history of shameless bias on its covers.
It is no surprise that Newsweek went bankrupt, got rescued in a buy-out, and continues to bleed money. No one reads it anymore.
Most Americans who read and vote are conservative, or are at least partly sympathetic to the conservative side of many issues. (The re-election of George W. Bush and the immense popularity of FOX News are all the evidence that you need to see this.)
It is just bad business for a news magazine to be so grossly unfair to the majority of their potential customers.
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Meh, I am on my phone so I don’t have the links. But I remember one interview where she compared homosexuality to mental illness, which I know a lot of people agree with but I think a politician really shouldn’t talk like that about people. And I think it was her doing the comparison to pedophilia, which I find really personally offensive.
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“intensely homophobic=for traditional marriage”
Both of them have ties to practitioners of “gay conversion”.
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Joan,
We have been over this already.
I just went to the website and saw nothing about that.
And if her husband did OFFER that kind of help to those that WANTED it, I see nothing wrong with that.
Their “choice” and all.
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HI again Jane,
Anti immigration? Like against illegal immigrants who have NO desire to become citizens of the US? Yeah. Then I am anti immigration too. No. Wait. My great great great grandparents were immigrants. Please explain anti immigration and provide a link.
Anti minimum wage? Huh? Link please.
Racist? Classist? Link and link.
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A link to that CatholicVote pictoral-article on Newsweek covers:
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=19609
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Dunno if the link will work, but here goes. The Daily Show did a funny segment on this
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-9-2011/glazed-and-confused
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Jack: ” And I think it was her doing the comparison to pedophilia, which I find really personally offensive.”
She didn’t compare homosexuality to pedophilia, as far as I know. She claimed — probably incorrectly — that a particular hate crimes bill would protect pedophiles. This doesn’t require an association of homosexuals with pedophiles, it merely requires that she [mis]understood the scope of the bill.
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Michelle Bachmann, on:
Minimum wage: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/eliminating-minimum-wage-slash-unemployment/story?id=13951494
Immigration: http://www.ontheissues.org/house/Michele_Bachmann_Immigration.htm
Marriage: http://www.thefamilyleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/themarriagevow.final_.7.7.111.pdf
From the above “sanctity of marriage” pledge that she recently endorsed:
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President.3
LOL LOL LOL! Jane, you hit the nail on the head!
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I remember Newsweek and Time running grainy B&W photos of Newt Gingrich that made him look demonic, while running airbrushed photos of Gore that made him look like a Ken doll.
Republicans just need to have their own portfolios of portrait photos from which the media may choose. The lbs will do this every time.
It should be RNC policy.
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Megan,Nagem
I deleted your comment.
You have been warned about this already.
Your moniker is Megan. Stick with that.
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My comment wouldn’t post. Lucky for you, I guess, I don’t feel like re-typing it.
But this quote is just so LOL that I can’t not share it here. From the marriage pledge M. Bachmann recently signed:
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA?s first African-American President.” (document source: http://www.thefamilyleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/themarriagevow.final_.7.7.111.pdf)
Really, what IS it with the pro-life obsession with slavery??
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Megan: Obsession with slavery? Apparently you haven’t appreciated points made on their rational merits.
Do you generally just emote?
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“Let’s be clear. The only – I repeat, ONLY – reason liberals vilify female politicians like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann is because they are pro-life” – complete and utter rubbish! The fact that Bachmann is anti-choice comes well down the list of reasons to criticize her. The main reason is simply her confused and distorted views on history and the constitution in an attempt to promulgate extreme conservative and religious positions via political and legislative acts. She also displays absolutely stunning displays of ignorance. The same applies to Palin.
I believe her husband receives government funding which in part finds its way into his ‘pray away the gay’ program.
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I think the first point of this blog posting is completely off-bases and has no foundation of reason. Michelle Bachmann is the farther right politician you can find these days – there is PLENTY for the left to not like about her. To try to boil it down to simply being pro-life is an abuse of intellectual thought.
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There is one good use for Newsweek magazine-> cleaning up dog poop. Other than that, I can’t think of any.
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The ‘extreme right’.
I have been active in conservative politics for 30 years. The republican platform has remained pretty much the same on the social and the economice issues.
‘marriage’ only became a subject of interest in response to the left wanting to hijack the term and re-define it to include a union between two or more people, animals of the same gender.
You want to make gender confusion a ‘handicap’ or ‘disability’.
The reason people on right appear ‘extreme’ to you is you folks keep moving further and further to the left.
You keep having to change your name to distance yourself from your last devolution.
What is the next generation of sectarian/secular humanists going to call themselves?
What is to the ‘extreme left’ of liberal?
Let us know when you have completed ‘focus grouping’ and arrived at your latest euphenism/misnomer/alias.
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Megan wrote: Really, what IS it with the pro-life obsession with slavery??
Slavery & abortion are both horrible evils which have been, at various times, unjustly protected by law and/orthe US Constitution. They both deprive large segments of the population of their inalienable human rights (“Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness”)
Listen to this guy explain it:
http://www.jillstanek.com/2011/08/1662-pro-slavery-law-sounds-remarkaly-pro-abortion/
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Ken the Birther – the difference between Michelle Bachmann and George Bush is light years away. It is probably wrong to even put them in the same sentence. Parts of the right, like parts of the left, have moved to extreme edges at points in time. In a time where the far right is as fringe as it has ever been, Bachmann is the leader of the charge.
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“hijack the term and re-define” – actually it was religion that did this originally and now the conservatives have weighed in.
“to include a union between two or more people, animals of the same gender.” – uh huh, the usual spurious nonsense. Gay marriage is no more likely to induce things like polygamy and incest than heterosexual marriage is. And it’s about people who love each other and consent to marriage, which rather excludes animals.
Humanity and societies change and evolve. Conservatives stay rooted in the past.
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Kramer, please. If we do a comparison, Obama would come off as just as much a buffoon. How many states are there? Which hand do you put over your heart during the national anthem? But the media has been so in love with him, they are the last ones to realize the honeymoon has long been over.
And as far as qualifications and experience: Americans elected a total idiot just because he was half black and they wanted to “make history.” (If Hillary Clinton were just a little more likeable, people might have wanted to “make history” and elect her, even though she’s hardly qualified and basically ran to win an argument with her husband that she could be a better president). Obama’s election had nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not anyone thought he could actually lead this country. So far he’s proven that his only two skills are: posing for pictures and blaming other people.
I think the whole conservative/liberal thing is overrated. Both political parties are full of buffoons and opportunists. I registered as a Democrat when I was 18, though I’m embarrassed of them now. Do I switch parties? No, why bother. Statesmen and women are mighty rare these days.
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Reality: “Gay marriage is no more likely to induce things like polygamy and incest than heterosexual marriage is. And it’s about people who love each other and consent to marriage.”
What’s wrong with polygamy? Why do you have a fetish for the number “2”?
And why the hell does marriage need to be about “love?” If you’re so sure of that, can you please explain what “love” is and why it has to have anything to do with marriage at all?
Seems quaint and traditional to me. So retrograde…
“Humanity and societies change and evolve. Conservatives stay rooted in the past.”
How naive can you be? Everyone believes some things should stay the same. We merely differ on what those things are. I’m conservative, and yet I embrace many changes that “liberals” around me do not.
Your taxonomy may be a simplistic comfort to a simple mind, but it’s not a sufficient explanation of “conservative” or “liberal” much less “authoritarian” or “libertarian”, or “communitarian” or “individualist” or any of a number of other polarities we could cite along which people position themselves in a complex world.
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I shall actually make an effort to not turn this into yet another gay marriage thread.
A report about Bachmann – “She has said her husband directed her to study tax law, and she obliged because “the Lord says: be submissive, wives; you are to be submissive to your husbands.” So who would call the presidential shots?
“Everyone believes some things should stay the same” – indeed. Obviously some more than others. Conservatives seem to struggle in a complex world rasqual. They prefer things to be black or white; not grey, variable or ever-changing.
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rasqual – It is disappointing to see you resort to attacking people instead of ideas – you appear to be decently smart, or at least good with your thesaurus – to see you calling somebody “simple minded” is a disappointment.
Fact of the matter is, you simply arbitrarily draw the line at a different place than Reality does. You do the same thing you are attacking her for – you just hide behind “well, we’ve always done it that way”.
Also, can you point out some of these changes that you embrace that liberals don’t? Are they changes to be proud of? (getting rid of Medicare, deporting all illegals and their kids?)
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Reality,
Which is worse on overbearing and domineering feminazi like Hillary Rodham Clinton railing on a hen pecked arrested adolescent skirt chasin horn dog like Slick Willy who has been caught with his pants down diddling the hired help, or woman who listens to her husband, considers his counsel and chooses to implement his advice.
In your biogoted view only leftist feministas can take the advice of a man and not be bobbled head bimbo.
Suggest you consult a dictionary and discover the meaning of the word chauvinist. It is a gender neutral term that can be applied equally to women or men. There is no difference between a male chauvinist pig and female chauvinist sow.
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Bachmann is worse than Hillary. Ten times worse – maybe up to fifty times worse. Ken, I’d rather have you as President (provided you have a valid birth certificate, 10 witnesses of your birth, and a video).
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Ex-GOP says: August 10, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Ex-RINO,
‘Ken the birther’ has a nice ring to it.
I may get some vanity plates, a bumper sticker or a tattoo.
mr. bo-jangles, please shut up and dance.
It seems that is one fo the few things that are not above your pay grade.
de-odorize the white house: remove b o
duces tecum
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I like the ring of “Ken the Birther” as well, and in all seriousness, if you find it offensive at any time, let me know and I’ll stop using it.
If I’m Obama, I announce I’m not running again – I let the GOP pass whatever tax cuts they want, and then let the GOP and their “balanced budget, don’t raise taxes” come into office. I think given the global economy, the job that Obama has done is fine. I struggle to find any sort of reason to believe that the world would be swimming in profit and happiness if McCain would have come into office.
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Attention Moderators!
from now and henceforth the formerly ‘yor bro ken’ will be dubbed, ‘ken the birther’.
Please forward all death threats, bomb scares, injunctions addressed to ‘yor bro ken’ to ‘ken the birther’.
My long form birth certificate will remain unchanged, my only social security number will remain unchanged, my selective service registration will remain unchanged all my high school and college transcripts will remain unchanged and available for inspection on request and I will submit to having my adult footprint compared to my newborn footprint to establisn my identity.
Upon request I will provide a list of my fromer girl friends names.
Where are b o’s former girl friends?
Has anyone heard of a single woman, other than Moochelle who has claimed to have dated b o?
Where are you ladies?
or maybe it was boys that b o preferred when he was coked up.
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Ken the Birther -
Come on – Bush is the only recent substance abuser we’ve had.
I don’t know how Obama would have had time to date lots of women – he had to figure out time travel, head back to his birth year, plant those newspaper articles and fake certificates…it would have been tiring work.
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So shall you be dubbed Ken the Birther.
Duly noted.
Carry on.
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Reality,
I want to THANK YOU for not going there about gay marriage. I, for one, appreciate your effort and shall join you in refraining.
:)
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Ex-RINO,
mr. bo-jangles has dillied and dallied and dithered, but he has not danced.
It is time for him to do something for which he has demonstrated some propensity.
If b o can’t identify the problem, he will not likely find the solution.
We need a diversions from the ‘malaise’ and the ‘misery index’.
Current misery index as of June 11: 12.76
Misery index when mr. bo-jangels began squatting in the white house: 7.83
Unemployment rate as of June 11: 9.2%
Unemployment rate on January 2008: 5.0%
Inflation rate as of June 2011: 3.56%
Inflation rate on January 2008: 4.28%
Well I have to give mr. bo-jangles credit, in spite of a massive increase of federal spending, and a massive increase in the money supply the inflation rate has not yet caught up with with the unemployment rate.
When Jimmy Carter took office the ‘misery index’ was 12.72 after the four years of his ‘reign of error’ it had increased to 19.72 and it averaged 16.26
After only two years of mr. bo-jangles bumbling the misery index has risen from 7.83 to 12.76
If the trend holds, and I see no evidence that b o is doing anything to mitigate the mess, by the time 2012 arrives the misery index will be over 25.0
Of course mr. bo-jangles may be in a federal penitentiary or he may have fled the scene of his crimes and taken refuge in the nation of his birth, Kenya.
dance mr. bo-jangles, dance.
de-odorize the white house: remove b o
duces tecum
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Well George Bush was a self confessed substance abuser, but he was our substance abuser.
We do not need to be importing more illegal aliens who are dysfucntional.
We have enough of our own.
Hopefully the Kenyans are equipped to treat mr. bo-jangles mulitple dysfunctions.
That is if mr. bo-jangles can implement the obama hellth scare scam in a third world economy.
If b o keeps at it he may be implementing it in third world economy in the USA.
mr. bo-jangles, please shut up and dance.
de-odorize the white house: remove b o
duces tecum
buenos noches
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Ken the Birther -
Do you think the economy would be any different, what-so-ever, if McCain were in office? If so, what do you base your theory on?
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Obamacare would not be in play, which has disrupted business dramatically, already.
Otherwise, alas, McCain is as Keynesian as the Current Resident.
A humorous read:
http://www.theoakinitiativeaz.org/2011/07/senator-john-mccain-and-the-hobbits/
I love this line: “The hobbits are chosen to carry the ring of power because they are the only ones humble enough to resist being corrupted by the power of the ring.” ;-)
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Reality: “Conservatives seem to struggle in a complex world rasqual. They prefer things to be black or white; not grey, variable or ever-changing.”
That’s kind of a black and white view of conservatives, isn’t it? As I said, Your taxonomy may be a simplistic comfort to a simple mind, but it’s not a sufficient explanation of “conservative” or “liberal” much less “authoritarian” or “libertarian”, or “communitarian” or “individualist” or any of a number of other polarities we could cite along which people position themselves in a complex world.
Yeah, William F. Buckley Jr. had problems with complexity. ;-)
And the Obama administration is having such a grand go of it in a complex economy! ;-)
Ex-GOP: “Fact of the matter is, you simply arbitrarily draw the line at a different place than Reality does.”
Y’know, it’s mildly irritating when someone preaches back to me what I just said as if I were unaware of it: Everyone believes some things should stay the same. We merely differ on what those things are.
And where do you find that I “just hide behind ‘well, we’ve always done it that way’?” Nothing I’ve said would support such an inference. ”You do the same thing you are attacking her for.” I do? I wasn’t “attacking her” for drawing arbitrary lines. I was pointing out that her characterization was naively generalizing as if conservatives embrace no change and liberals consider nothing of universal value transcending the passage of time.
Some things should always stay the same. Is anyone on this board stupid enough to dissent from that proposition? No? I thought not. Some things stand in dire need of change. Any takers for that? No, I thought not. So it’d be great to stop with the STUPID generalizations.
And why would I want to deport my own grandchild?
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It’s OK Ex-GOP, I have become accustomed to rasqual’s need to mix his responses with disparaging little remarks (almost non sequiturs) so as to appear to be offering something of greater value than he actually is. Enhanced of course by his regurgitation of some daily consumption of a crossword assistance guide.
“In your biogoted view…” – what’s the term for this sort of thing? Ah yes, ‘ad hominem’.
I think we’ve discussed it a few times in more relevant settings lately Carla, and I’m sure we will do so again. I think the focus here should be on the fact that Bachmann is either deranged or demented and that is why she is criticized. Not ‘ONLY because she is pro-life’.
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Reality: Can you cite a single post by me, at any time, anywhere on the Internet, where I’ve used the term bigoted without an accompanying reason for using that term?
I’ve been consistent in my use of the term on the Internet for at least 15 years, always pairing it with critique of others’ unwarranted generalizations (generally concerning classes of people).
Logical fallacies include numerous failures involving generalization. But many generalizations aren’t so much logical fallacies as mere failures to be empirical. “Black folks like watermelon.” Yeah. And careful observation — as opposed to careless generalization — urges us to expand the proposition: “Most folks of any color like watermelon.”
When you’re actually guilty of unwarranted generalizations about other classes of people, I will call you on it and I’m likely to use the term “bigoted.” You may disagree with my use of the term, but I’m transparent about why I use it.
Calling someone engaging in bigoted generalizations “bigoted” is not ad hominem. Ad hominem is when you try to dilute the force of someone else’s argument by impugning their character. When the argument IS that the other person is acting bigoted, it’s impossible for the claim itself to be ad hominem. Now perhaps if I could not make the case that you were engaging in unwarranted generalization, I might be tempted to tell everyone you cost your school the declaim trophy two years running, “so her remarks likely have little value here, either.” That would be ad hominem.
Unwarranted generalization is a logical fallacy and/or an empirical failure. People who do it are not promoting a good argument (meaning an argument that leads to better understanding of an issue) — they’re avoiding one.
Do you better understand now?
(Hmm. Actually, I better understand now myself. Noticing your spelling, I searched and saw you were quoting someone else via cut & paste. I’ll keep the above rant, though, since it well explains my own use of the term here and elsewhere.)
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My referring to ‘bigoted’ was in response to ken, rasqual. Do keep up. It’s not always about you.
Did you notice the large break between my response to Ex-GOP and my response to ken, and then again for my response to Carla. I didn’t actually address you at all in that particular post.
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Ex-GOP: Via Reality, “I think the focus here should be on the fact that Bachmann is either deranged or demented.”
Do you find that language disappointing too?
Bear in mind that Reality is a Scientific Person who wouldn’t rush to hasty conclusions (any more than to unwarranted generalizations) without solid evidence — such as a clinical diagnosis.
“deranged or demented…”
Reality, you remind me of the barmaid in The Blues Brothers: “We have both kinds of music — Country and Western.”
Tolerant, fair minded non-conservatives (who can handle a complex world surpassing black and white descriptions) draw upon a deep reservoir of rich lexical choices to describe those they loathe.
“deranged or demented…”
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Bachmann can’t get independents.
The Democrats want her to run instead of someone like Rick Perry.
They will just wait till they can do more damage, then they will bring her down.
Rick Perry would shout, “Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!” and get independents because he has been governor of Texas which is doing better than a lot of places.
Basically, Bachmann wasn’t as lucky as Perry.
Still, she can’t win, so the opposition wants her to be the candidate.
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On this occasion you are in fact correct rasqual. It is not an empirically proven fact that she is deranged or demented – despite the body of evidence. Allow me to rephrase –
I think the focus here should be on the fact the majority of ‘liberals’ or ‘lefties’ find that Bachmann is either deranged or demented and that is why she is criticized. Not ‘ONLY because she is pro-life’.
Are you able to sit back and breathe now that it has been confirmed that I really, truly made a seizable error for you to latch onto rasqual?
‘deranged’ and ‘demented’ are not totally synonymous rasqual.
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“the majority of ‘liberals’ or ‘lefties’ find that Bachmann is either deranged or demented”
And these are folks in the “fact-based” community, right?
Why does your corrected remark sound like nothing so much as a description of unscientific, slanderous, jump-to-conclusions, intolerant nitwits?
Are you sure you’re not misprepresenting liberals? You know — those complex thinkers who don’t reflexively judge things in such black and white terms?
“‘deranged’ and ‘demented’ are not totally synonymous rasqual.”
Awesome nuance! That’s why we yokels are so darned glad to have y’all progressive types around to he’p us with our l’arnin’.
To hazard getting this diagnosis wrong, though — well, it’s just unthinkable. Thank God for the evident liberal humility, disclosing their incertitude. Which is it? We may never know.
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Hey Megs,
“Really, what IS it with the pro-life obsession with slavery??”
You tell me. You are a slave to abortion, coming here for well over a thousand hours and posting a non-stop apologia for tearing babies to pieces. We’re not even talking about your hedonism, or your contracting for your child’s killing.
We’re talking about you’re enslavement to the slaughter of millions and millions of babies.
Why Megan? What drives a human being to obsess to the point of self-enslavement over the promotion of mass murder?
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So you don’t get the nuance of ‘find that’ either? Do you need me to explain it for you?
“Why does your corrected remark sound like nothing so much as a description of unscientific, slanderous, jump-to-conclusions, intolerant nitwits?” – Bachmann would probably feel the same way, which says a lot really.
“Awesome nuance! That’s why we yokels are so darned glad to have y’all progressive types around to he’p us with our l’arnin’.” – I knew I could hear duelling banjos in the background as I read your comments!
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Ken, in regards to the ‘right’, it’s occurred to me recently that the right is not ‘right’ but more close to ‘centre’ because a point somewhere between 0 and 100% in terms of government control can never be ‘extreme’, be it in the social or economic realms. Accepting the ‘right’ moniker should be the first thing conservatives should buck. It is the left who are always going to be extreme with their obsession to control other people’s lives in microscopic details and seeking fundamental ‘change’. Conservatives simply want their children to have the blessings of the same guiding principles that they had and generations had before them. Not all change is good. Some things are just as valid today as they were in 1787, over a hundred years before the invention of powered flight.
And I wonder, if Bachmann supposedly can’t win because she is so ‘extreme’, why bother smearing her? The truth is the left fear her same as Palin. And as they fear her, let them further unravel in their nonsensical attacks on her. It reflects on them, not her.
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One last note before bed.
Reality, again: “Humanity and societies change and evolve. Conservatives stay rooted in the past.”
Joan, in a nearby thread: “Social conservatives like to accuse liberals of radical social engineering, but what would be a greater act of social engineering than overriding thousands of years of universal legal tradition by deeming fetuses to have rights that begin at conception?”
Liberals are afraid of how humanity changes and evolves, I guess, wishing to stay rooted in the past. And those conservatives — their ambitious social engineering would override ancient traditions.
Does anyone see why I weary of stupid generalizations?
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You’re fun rasqual. Sweet dreams.
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Demented? Deranged?
I think not.
She can’t win. Although I like Bachmann I didn’t want her to run in the first place.
I agree, hippie.
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Rasqual – I’m still on the edge of my seat waiting for the list of things that you are more on the cutting edge of change on.
Sorry if I misrepresented your views on marriage – fact of the matter is, I’ve read a lot of your posts, and while I think I have a pretty good idea in regards to what you don’t support, I rarely see any sort of affirming statements of what you stand for – so I guess I was just guessing as to what your views on marriage were.
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Ex-GOP: I didn’t say I was “more on the cutting edge” than folks who deem themselves non-conservative. I merely said I embrace many changes that liberals I’ve known do not welcome. I’m open to change in general because I’m an innovator. Change is the sea I swim in, by temperament. So now you know why I hold in such disdain any generalization that pretends conservatives resist change because they prefer the past, or other such rot.
I’ve had liberal acquaintances who resist architectural changes, who’ve resisted changes in workflow despite evident advantages, who in failing to prognosticate market directions have resisted changing platforms for application development, and so forth. I’ve also had conservative acquaintances who resist changes. I’ve had conservative acquaintances who embrace them. And I’ve had liberal acquaintances who embrace them.
In each distinct case, the parties had their reasons. Not all changes I’ve seen them resist were good changes. Not all changes I’ve seen others accept were good, either.
Are you beginning to see a pattern, here? It’s called complexity. People are too complex to carelessly generalize about. (that’s a non-careless generalization)
In the political world, most liberals I know resist vouchers for education — something I strongly advocate. Maybe I should characterize this is some latent conservatism in their soul, some illicit pining for the good ol’ days, amid the chaos of progress that threatens their comfortable lives? They’re just social couch potatoes, human bundles of inertia?
Well, no. They have their reasons, it turns out. My job would be to engage those reaons.
Or I could examine the dictum and pigeonhole them: “Humanity and societies change and evolve. Conservatives stay rooted in the past.”
Under that simplistic rubric, to the extent that someone opposes vouchers, they’re conservative. Why? Because in failing to account for anything other than chronology, this trite shibboleth marks only that they’re resisting change.
If you established a perfect society, a hundred years later some yahoo would show up and sneer that everyone was a conservative because they were rooted in the past. Get with the program, man! Roll with us! Go with the flow! That attitude reflects shallow engagement with actual reasons people have for retaining one thing and rejecting alternatives.
The reason I sit in a particular posture in a chair is because I’m comfortable. I found its sweet spot. I could change my position at any time — but I don’t. This doesn’t make me a fetishist for the good ol’ days, it just means there’s little reason to sit any differently — and probably some reasons not to. I have all the potential residing within my own judgment for changing things; I don’t need outside agitators to move me about. I’m capable of that myself. But I don’t. Why? Because I’m conservative? No. Because my early motions in the chair, by the process of elimination, discovered the ideal spot.
That analogy doesn’t defend some general notion that change is bad (otherwise I’d have remained in the same position I originally landed in); it’s a narrow example intended to illustrate merely that my early motions in the chair could be construed as radical and innovative, or progressive. I was a veritable hellion! Shaking things up! Then I found that certain motions made things worse. I gravitated toward a spot that worked better. By trial and error, by empirical exploration of the possibility space of the chair, I identified an ideal. There’s no WAY I could have discovered that spot by reason alone: “Here’s the spot in the chair that will work for everybody! Heck, let’s design the chair so people must sit in only this prescribed position! And if you resist this change, you’re conservative (spit).”
Bah. Question-begging generalizations are wearying. Changes are properly evaluated on their merits — not based on whether people who advocate or resist them love or loathe change qua change.
Not sure how you misrepresented my views on marriage. Was that in another thread recently? My view is “one man, one woman.” If someone argues that’s unfair, then I think they damn well better ensure that what they advocate is fair to everyone — including polygamists. The number “two” is arbitrary — as is “love” as a reason to marry.
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BTW, I do think liberals would tolerate Bachmann if she were pro-choice (discounting their obvious need to excoriate her merely because Obama must be defended). Resistance to her can’t really be on account of liberals thinking she’s crazy; they’ve supported other lunatics in their own party (since this thread is going there) — because they vote a particular way on bills. A vote isn’t crazy or sane, it’s a way to get things done. Whether it’s dead people in Chicago or total moonbats in Congress, politicians will take any vote they can get — and some (and their acolytes at large) will mercilessly impugn anyone they don’t want having a voice among them.
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In regard to your pre-bedtime comment rasqual –
Conservatives are anti-choice.
Society advances and gives women choice.
Conservatives find it too difficult to directly repeal this.
They scrabble around for other means to negate the outcome of women being given choice.
They try to introduce extraordinary legislation which they hope will cancel out such advances in society.
Because they are rooted in the past.
As ironic as it may seem, they make changes to prevent change.
“I do think liberals would tolerate Bachmann if she were pro-choice” – I can assure you I would not. The woman is close to dangerous and that’s before she votes on anything.
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Reality: Is your picture in the dictionary for “tendentious?”
Liberals are anti-life.
Society plummets into disregard for the most vulnerable among us.
Liberals champion those who destroy innocent life.
They even argue (Doug) that persuading a woman to let her unborn child live is “anti-choice.”
They invoke laws framed to deal with the worst of organized crime (for-profit thuggery) against grandmothers protesting the killing fields that’ve snuffed out over 50 million innocent lives.
Because they are rooted in contempt for life.
Gee, that kind of rhetorical play really advances the conversation, doesn’t it?
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Pictures of me are rare and I’m not aware of them appearing anywhere in the public domain.
Does your visage feature alongside ‘alieniloquent’ in the dictionary?
Have you put your little dirge to music?
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Rasqual -
Thanks for the 1500 word essay on how you embrace change. I think you could have just said that you don’t like broad sweeping generalizations, but if you did like generalizations, you would say liberals don’t like school vouchers and you do – so that an area where you embrace change more than others.
In regards to your second statement on Bachmann…I don’t get it – how can a person who appears to be smart simply think that the left is a one issue party? On the top 15 items, Bachmann is a far (extreme) right on all 15 – there’s no way that Democrats would tolerate her if she flipped views in one. You’ve either never looked at her record (or at least what she says – she doesn’t have much of a record) or you are simply trying to pick a fight.
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Hippie: Basically, Bachmann wasn’t as lucky as Perry.
Still, she can’t win, so the opposition wants her to be the candidate.
Hippie, good point – as I think applies to Palin as well.
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Bachmann goes against many things I believe in. For one thing, I am ardently pro-choice. BUT, Newsweek was unbelievably and unapologetically misogynistic in their coverage of her. Anytime a woman is strong, opinionated and independent, there are groups of sexist men and women who feel it necessary to “put her back in her place.” This is 2011 and not 1911. And BTW, just because I am liberal in many areas doesn’t mean I care for Obama. Mitt Romney is my favorite right now.
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I’m really glad Bachman won. That says what I want to hear about the base. By way of voodoo triangulation, I also read those tea leaves as sayin’ that Perry is likely to be our next president. What REALLY interests me is wondering who the veep will be — and how infinitely less held in contempt by their president they’ll be than Biden is.
The Republican primary is going to be a rich field for independents to think about. I very much doubt abortion will be on their mind in this economy.
In a weird irony, I suspect the Republican field is going to boost market confidence and possibly shake loose some of that business capital — with Obama taking credit by way of political osmosis, or somesuch.
:::sigh:::
Anyone who takes a linear view of how the world works hasn’t learned much. Including me. ;-)
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Ex-GOP: I’m just irritated with folks who do that “I’m still waiting for that list of…” thing in forums — which irritatingly implies their need of evidence for what should be intuitive.
My approach isn’t to ignore ’em, but to stream-of-consciousness ’em till they groan and move on. ;-)
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If this is the best Newsweek could do to get a crazy shot of Bachmann…… she must not have provided much opportunity.
I have a hilarious collection of Pelosi and Napolitano pics.
Hope Bachmann is in the mood to take the shots…… she’s taking over from Palin as prime target.
The CROSSHAIRS are on Bachmann now.
Face it, the lefties hate a woman who proves that you don’t have to kill your babies to advance in your career.
Remembers that Newsweek has no readers, took a dump and the company was sold by the Washington Post for a dollar.
http://www.bizmology.com/2010/08/11/how-newsweek-was-sold-for-a-dollar/
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Newsweek has almost no readers, and was sold by the Washington Post for a dollar
Tried to add this link to a correction of my last post and it got marked as spam
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Whoever believes that “the only reason liberals vilify female politicians like Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann is because they are pro-life” is mistaken. Did we all forget about all the sexist jokes that both Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton got in 2008? They both got a lot more criticism then their opposing male running mates and opponents. This picture of Michele Bachmann has nothing to do with her standing position on being pro-life but rather a bad joke. As a pro-life voter I wished to like Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin but unfortunately that is not going to happen which is based on their other views that I strongly oppose. Yes, this picture was not called for but it has nothing to do with her pro-life views.
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