They're Exactly The Same, Of Course

[filkertom]

George Will spends a lot of time today lying about President Obama and both lying about and fluffing Texas Governor Rick Perry, but one bit stood out for me:

He [Perry] signed a law requiring women seeking abortions to be shown sonograms of their babies. Do people objecting to this mandatory provision of information object to the new graphic warnings on cigarette packs?

Mr. Will, sir, are you actually comparing state-sanctioned interference in a legal medical procedure with warning labels against sucking carcinogens into your lungs?

I'm beginning to suspect that I will never, ever understand how people can think like this.

Comments

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

It begins, I think, from the fundamental underying belief that women are not fully functional people, and 1) cannot help but run around doing immoral things if not held in check by men who know better, and 2) don't have the reason and emotional capacity to be hurt by these things.

I vaguely remember a long time ago he used to sound kind of clever.

[ashkitty.livejournal.com]

That too. That comes from the Victorians; the other goes back to Aristotle. :p

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

And yet...women vote for these misogynist knuckle-draggers.

No women I know admit to doing so, but still, it must be true, because there are enough female voters in every political district in America to prevent the election of someone who says this shit out loud.

And yet they win elections. With the necessary help of some women who vote for them. Each and every one of them.

They don't even engage in reasoned debate any more. You might as well try to "debate" someone who responds to everything you say with "I'm rubber; you're glue" or "Neener-Neener-Neener." And when they are shown to be wrong, or lying, there are no consequences.

American Democracy has failed.

[peachtales.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the fact that he used to sound vaguely clever, and even sane. I used to look forward to reading him.

[phillip2637.livejournal.com]

I think if you listened to political interviews the way you might listen to interviews featuring pro wrestlers, it could help. It won't help with the situation, but possibly with the understanding. :)

(Seriously, the more I hear talk about politics, the more it reminds me of sports. Too many people first choose a side to support and then adjust their beliefs and information input in order to prop up that choice.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Oh, I tried that for awhile, back when Bob Dole was referring to himself in the third person. Problem is, there simply aren't enough face turns.

[dlobok.livejournal.com]

It was pretty amazing (in all the wrong way) hearing Texas lawmakers justify that law. Their reasoning was they wanted women to "know all the options," but if it prevented a few abortions that's cool, too.

Oh, and the women have to pay for the sonograms - which, of course, aren't cheap.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I'm always baffled by the notion that abortion is chosen lightly, and that knowing what Your Precious Child™ looks like at 12 weeks will make you rethink and abandon all your previous reasons for getting an abortion in the first place.

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Problem being, of course, that they *didn't* also mandate that the risks of carrying a child to term and then giving birth were listed alongside the risks of abortion. 'Cause, well, having a baby is riskier than the process of not having one, and that would just provide more evidence that "protecting life" isn't exactly why they're doing this, y'know?

[holzman.livejournal.com]

I appreciate about Mr. Will's article that it strips away the rubric about the law being an attempt to help make women informed decisions and lays bare the truth that, exactly like the graphic warnings on cigarette packs, the purpose of the law is to pressure people not to make the choice the legislator doesn't want them to make.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

+1

[damiana-swan.livejournal.com]

Except for this: if someone chooses to smoke, the public ends up taking on some of the long-term costs of the medical risks involved. It can (and often does) end up costing the public hundreds of thousands to care for someone who is extremely sick because they chose to smoke.

The same is *not* true of abortion--the public does not end up paying the long-term costs of the medical risks of a woman choosing to have an abortion because, most often, there are none. Quite the contrary, in fact--in the cases where a woman is choosing an abortion because she can't afford to support a child and then graphic warnings convince her to have the child she cannot afford... it's the public that ends up paying the costs of raising that child. Which are, in fact, comparable to the costs of caring for someone with terminal cancer and/or emphysema from choosing to smoke.

[musicmutt.livejournal.com]

You know, Tom I used to make a part time living out of making fun of the absurdity of the Canadian government. I have to say, American politicians make Canadians look sane a rational.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Gray, if only it weren't so damn true.

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

An additional insight:

By requiring each abortion seeker to view a sonogram, Perry's basically created a win-win situation.

If the woman decides not to abort, it's evidence that all previous abortions were sought out of ignorance that OMFG IT R BABBY.

If the woman proceeds with the abortion, it's evidence that she's an evil, selfish, baby-killing bitch.

As Captain Jean-Luc Picard said of the Duras sisters, "[They] have manipulated the situation with the skill of a Romulan."

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

When I was in college, yea unto the Middle Ages, George F. Will tended to be at least facially credible.

Starting about 1995, he morphed into George F. Shill.

[lothie.livejournal.com]

I'm sure I don't speak for all women here, but do anti-abortion activists REALLY think that women who abort DON'T CARE? That we don't FEEL GUILT? That it was an EASY DECISION?

FUCK THEM.

*coff* Sorry. Sore subject.

[terriwells.livejournal.com]

As near as I can tell, many of them *do* think that. Not only that, but when anti-abortion activists get abortions (as they sometimes do), they're convinced that their abortion is "different;" that they're different from the others in the waiting room seeking an abortion because they're not doing it lightly, because they have "good reasons" for it. It rarely if ever occurs to them that the others in the waiting room aren't nearly as different from them as they'd like to believe.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Alright, then I think it's only fair that any Texas man who wants a prescription for Extenze be shown a photograph of George Will's penis, magnified 10x so it has a chance of being recognized as such.

After all, they should be aware of all the options.

[gardnerhill.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, George Will. The man who blamed Leonard Bernstein for the gang violence in L.A. during the 1980s.

Follow the bouncing Republican-logic ball with me, kids:

1) Leonard Bernstein wrote the music for "West Side Story," an early-1960s musical that "glorified gang violence." You know, the way it showed how gang violence hurt young people, tore apart the lovers and brought grief to both their families? That "glorification." (I'm not sure Will ever got the memo that the musical was created as a modern version of "Romeo and Juliet," the Shakespeare play that glorified violence among young white European aristocrats of the 1500s.)

2) A whole generation of amoral hippie punk bleeding-heart Kennedy-voters grew up sympathizing with gang thugs because of "West Side Story."

3) Same young Kennedy-voting punks go into public office and pass legislation mollycoddling criminals (like not executing them for the crimes of being black and poor).

4) Gang violence blossoms under this liberal mollycoddling.

So the gang-violence epidemic had nothing to do with the disappearance of jobs from poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods at the same time that tons of crack cocaine was being funnelled in at all - it was all the fault of that damn queer liberal Jew musician. Thanks, George.

Not two years ago George Will equated wearing "dungarees" (jeans) as a sign of the "perpetual immaturity" of this generation.

So yeah, I'm totally on board with his attitude about what he wants the wimmenfolks to do without Hubby's permission slip.

[dan-ad-nauseam.livejournal.com]

Krup that.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

Could it possibly be that you do not want to understand how people can think that way, or that you're afraid of discovering that they might actually be right?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Okay, why don't you tell us what goes on in the mind of a woman who's become pregnant against her will, since you're obviously so experienced?

[elf]

Are cigarette buyers required to have their own lungs x-rayed before purchasing a pack? 'Cos I think if the requirement was "must be handed a pamphlet with sonogram photos before getting an abortion," there'd be a lot less objections.