Well, They *Should* Be Defending Akin
I was a little disappointed that in the immediate aftermath of Akin’s “legitimate rape” non-gaffe with the exception of Dana Loesch conservatives were cagey enough to criticize Akin for saying the quiet part loud. (After all, anti-choice cranks might move them…to A BIGGER HOUSE!) So surely Glenn Reynolds would get the memo. After all, he’s just a nonpartisan “quirky liberal” who is oddly considered a conservative Republican just because of his support for ruinous wars against countries that pose no security threat to the United States, massive upper-class tax cuts, dismantling the welfare state, etc. etc. Nominal social liberalism is his cover! Surely this will be the first case in years where he unequivocally criticizes a Republican? Here’s his response, in its entirety:
BY THE TIME I NOTICED THIS STORY, IT WAS OVER, but Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” remarks pale in comparison with Whoopi Goldberg’s.
UPDATE: Here’s the Whoopi Goldberg “Rape-Rape” Video.
So, to conclude, we shouldn’t care about the 13th century gender politics of a member of Congress who is currently running for Senate, but the (very offensive but no more offensive) comments of a talk show host from 2 years ago remain a major story that preemptively exonerate anything that a Republican might say. Right. Although I must say I was appalled when the Whoopi Goldberg was made the Democratic candidate for governor.
For the less passive-aggressive version, see the sidekick of everyone’s favorite neoconfederate, who defends Akin by going on about how “[t]his is not mature liberty for the mind; this is slavery to the crotch” and “Todd Akin, himself, is treated to a 65-year late abortion by the Left for offering an argument pertaining to 1% of abortions.” He is not a crackpot.
Anyway, the defenses make sense — what Akin was fundamentally doing is making the subtext text. As Garance Franke-Ruta notes, his misogynist lies have an extensive pedigree within the anti-choice movement. The Republican Party has made its bed; Akin is just making the bedroom glass transparent.
I think what’s going on is a fundamentalist belief (and we all know belief need not be logical and very seldom is) that God will prevent a woman who was “legitimately” raped from becoming pregnant. View Akins’ comments through that lens and they are consistent. View his comments through any rational lens and he is ..well you fill in the adjective..
I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s a common fundamentalist belief that babies conceived via rape are part of God’s plan for the mother. Make of that what you will.
Then let us pray that God’s “plan” for Mittster and Batboy is to keep them as far away from the levers of power as is possible.
Really? That’s all? I’m rooting for triplets for each of them. Those two could use a couple miracles…
I wonder if Akin’s was conceived by a case of legitimate anal rape, since he’s such an asshole.
Btw – this guy is on the House SCIENCE Committee.
Well, I guess if you can have Bachmann on the Intelligence Committee, that’s not that far a stretch…
Oh, and you know who’s conspicuously missing in any of these converstations about Akin?
Paul Ryan – who co-sponored Akins draconian anti-abortion bill, that’s who.
Someone needs to ask Ryan what his definition of “legitimate rape” is!
In fairness, I doubt most of the admittedly far more rational Democrats really understand science all that well.
IIRC, Harkin (from the state I grew up in, and who in general is IMHO a good Senator, since he’s pretty liberal) pushed for the creation of that institute at the NIH that looks into alternative medicine. (Not that one can’t approach that from a truly scientific angle, but…)
yeah, alternative medicine. that is REALLY kooky.
The purpose of that institute was to rigorously test the claims made by various alternative medicine practitioners. Given that there had been virtually no such research previously, this seems like a really good idea. FWIW, that research has, last I heard, pretty much refuted all the claims it tested.
Depends on the venue. When the mother of a child so conceived is standing with fundies at a Planned Parenthood protest, they’ll celebrate her for finding a silver lining. When she’s at the welfare office, they’ll accuse her of seeing her womb as lined with silver.
I think I’ll submit that to They’ll Do It Every Time.
TDIET died with Al Scaduto.
Not to be confused with Marco Scutaro.
or the scudetto https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Italian_football_champions
Carlin pointed out the huge contradiction between the “god’s plan” theme and the “power of prayer” theme in fundamentalist thinking.
The idea is that whenever something goes bad the excuse used is “it was part of God’s Grand Plan that we can’t hope to understand.” But even so they are told to pray for whatever they want today – end of abortion, sending liberals to hell, that cute redhead at the supermarket. So they are praying to ask God to change his Grand Plan.
These are people incapable of logic or self-awareness.
Ah, the good old “problem of evil.”
Theodicy ends up ruining the smarter religious types almost like a time traveling paradox has ruined so many a movie.
Those that give humans agency and therefore responsibility never have this dilemma.
“Hark ye yet again – the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event – in the living act, the undoubted deed – there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall?”
Moby Dick
There is a way to square this circle, but requires a pretty sophisticated understanding of a believer’s role in the church. The long and the short of it is that you don’t pray for what you want, you pray to learn what God wants, and then you pray for that.
Needless to say, this is not what most practicioners understand themselves to be doing.
Why would that be necessary? Why wouldn’t God just cause whatever it is that he wants to happen?
Once you start looking at the details, the whole stinkin’ edifice just collapses.
It’s not a matter of “praying for” what God wants but of submitting to God’s will. One can find this position to be hooey (I do), but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t have to be wholly incoherent.
most religion is incoherent,
starting with: “first, there was an invisible, all-powerful guy in the sky (which didn’t actually exist, until he made it)”, and pretty much going downhill from there.
this is actually one of the problems encountered by the bishops, at the first council of nicea, in 325. they had to somehow fit all the inconsistencies of the old testament, with all the incosistencies of the new testament. i expect vast quantities of wine were drunk during those meetings.
“You can not petition the Lord with prayer!”
I was surprised when I found out that it was wrong to pray for specific things. You are supposed to pray for the grace to accept God’s will. Praying that your child recover from some illness – nope – that’s an insult to God. You pray for the strength to accept the outcome of the illness either way.
You’re also supposed to give thanks for the good things that happen, including your continued existance. So, don’t ask for nothin, be grateful for what ya got, and suck it up about the bad shit.
After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
“I was surprised when I found out that it was wrong to pray for specific things.” So was I, considering that Jesus specifically asks for his daily bread in his model prayer.
But Akin et al. are trying to make it sound all sciency and biomological, with the doctors and the secretions and what not. If you don’t want your position to be analyzed rationally, don’t present it as rational.
Are you saying they should present irrational positions rationally? There are limits. These are the people who recast creationism as intelligent design. Their forays into science are generally unsuccessful. It’s all just window dressing for the faithful.
Bit of a stretch to argue that the “pro-life” movement is “motivated by misogyny and ignorance of human sexuality.” It’s motivated by religion. Misogyny and ignorance are merely the tools they use to impose their religious beliefs on women.
This is debatable. Many would argue that religion is the tool for advancing misogyny.
I disagree. Given that it’s possible to read the Bible in a nearly infinite number of ways to support any possible conclusion anyone would want to make, there is a strong case to be made that they’re bringing the misogyny and ignorance to the table and using their religious texts to find justification for them.
Not all Christians are ignorant misogynists, after all. In fact, some of the best people I know are Baptists. Emphatically NOT Southern Baptists, mind you, but Baptists.
Not to mention that not all misogynists are Christians. I think you’ll find them in all quarters of the world, in all shapes, colors and religious modes.
I think you have it backwards. Misogyny is the motivation and religion and ignorance are the tools used to impose it.
There are many decent, religious people who truly believe that life begins at conception that abortion is thus murder. Does that make them misogynists?
They are wrong for imposing their religious beliefs on others and many of them are misogynists as well, but it all starts with religion.
There are almost no mentions of abortion in the Bible at all. The only two references, in the Old Testament, indicate that it was not a crime and that it was in fact mandatory for an adulterous woman (this interpretation is also supported by the modern rabbinate). Given that there is no scriptural support or rationale for their anti-abortion stance, I go with it being motivated by misogyny.
There are many decent, religious people who truly believe that life begins at conception that abortion is thus murder.
No, there aren’t.
The entire “life begins at conception” nonsense was ginned up in response to Roe v Wade, in an attempt to make the antichoice position respectable. Nobody ever made such a claim before the decision in Roe.
And of course, it’s not how anyone really thinks about the world. Asked our age, we don’t start calculating when our parents had sex, and nobody throws their kid a conception day party.
That’s a pretty broad brush you have there. There are plenty of decent religious people, and I know several myself. I disagree with them on practically everything, but its not fair to summarily dismiss them as ignorant misogynists.
I think you have a good point. Most of these people just believe what they are told or what they are raised to believe.
But you have to remember that various religious organizations specifically chose a dogma on abortion and that dogma was then propogated outwards.
So ultimately there is a difference between the reason a random religionist believes abortion is wrong and why they have been taught to believe that.
Abortion is a good thing for a religious hierarchy because it is at the intersection of anti-sex and anti-woman.
When people get their beliefs from ignorant misogynists and never question those beliefs then I think it matters very little how “decent” they are. They’re ignorant and they’re advancing misogyny. If it makes you uncomfortable to call them ignorant misogynists I suppose you can call them ignorant misogynist enablers.
They’re ignorant and they’re advancing misogyny.
I agree 100%. I just took exception to the statement in the article that the pro-life movement “is motivated by misogyny and ignorance of human sexuality” as opposed to religion. They are not advancing misogyny for the sake of misogyny. They are advancing misogyny for the sake of religion. The end result is the same of course.
They are advancing misogyny for the sake of religion.
No, they are advancing religion for the sake of misogyny. Before abortion was legalized in Roe, nobody made this “life begins at conception” argument. They invented the religious argument in an attempt to justfiy the positon they wanted to take out of misogyny.
What rea said. I really think you have it backwards.
Before abortion was legalized in Roe, nobody made this “life begins at conception” argument.
And it always comes out that if you actually force them to rigorously examine their own positions, most of them really don’t believe it either. Most support IVF. And support rape/incest exceptions. Which, logically they shouldn’t if they truly believed life begins at conception.
“Life begins at conception” was not ginned up in response to Roe vs. Wade. In the Catholic tradition it was most famously affirmed in Humanae Vitae back in 1968 five years before Roe. (Twelve years of Catholic school turned me into an atheist).
“Asked our age, we don’t start calculating when our parents had sex”….
Well, I know that I was born 9 months and 6 days after my brother’s 1st birthday…. I’m pretty sure my parents had a birthday party, and *didn’t* invite my brother.
I had a girlfriend 30+ years ago who wanted to celebrate “conception day” with her parents until I mentioned they just might give her the details of said conception. All of them. Hint: she was a happy premarital accident. For various sarcastic readings of the term “happy”.
Augustine and Aquinas both held that life began at quickening, as did English Common Law, as does (as DrDick mentions) rabbinical law.
The misogyny isn’t in drawing a line as to whether abortion is murder or not.
The misogyny occurs when, by legislative (or religous) fiat, the decision is deemed too important to leave to the women whose lives will be affected by it.
“There are many decent, religious people who truly believe that life begins at conception that abortion is thus murder. Does that make them misogynists?”
Yes. Because the concepts behind these stances are misogynist.
Yes, if they want to outlaw abortion they are misogynists. Oh and they are not decent people; they are evil.
Does that make them misogynists?
Yes, it does.
It’s always nice to get a visit from an Egyptian cat goddess.
it’s motivated by religion
Except, of course, that many religious people aren’t anti-abortion crackpots. The fact that Roman Catholics are no more likely to oppose abortion rights than anyone else makes it pretty clear that it’s not religion per se that’s doing the work.
Of course not all religious people feel compelled to impose their beliefs on others. But religion is the root cause of this bullshit. Have fun trying to find an atheist or an agnostic who is anti-choice.
Ahem.
Well, atheists can be assholes too.
But does anyone really believe that there is an abortion debate without religion?
The anti-abortion forces would call that a plus, not a minus.
Goldberg is only a talk show host but she’s also a noisy liberal, or what passes for one on The View, with a national television audience, so it’s hard to say that Reynolds can’t use her to say nyah-nyah for partisan purposes. It’s unfair and the two examples are not equivalent but them’s the breaks.
I don’t think she ever really took it back, either. Thanks, Whoopi.
Goldberg is only a talk show host but she’s also a noisy liberal, or what passes for one on The View, with a national television audience, so it’s hard to say that Reynolds can’t use her to say nyah-nyah for partisan purposes. It’s unfair and the two examples are not equivalent but them’s the breaks.
What a talk show host said two goddamned years ago mean you can’t criticize comments made by a candidate for the United States Senate? Which actually reflect underlying political views of the movement he represents? That’s just asinine.
It would indeed be asinine if that’s what I’d said.
It would indeed be asinine if that’s what I’d said.
Well, the what does this mean?
it’s hard to say that Reynolds can’t use her to say nyah-nyah for partisan purposes.
Actually, yes. It’s very, very, easy, because the comparison is asinine. It would be pretty asinine if Goldberg had said that last week; it’s asinine in the extreme when you have to go back two years.
I’m betting there would be, but more along the lines of the debates over eugenics (see Buck v Bell) than the overheated rhetorical debates currently in play.
Well, no true atheist would …
You deserve your very own Internet just for the cool animation. Thanks for making Monday less grim
All credit for the animation goes to Protevi.
Not to mention one of the more recent trolls hereabouts, who went by an identifiably atheist handle and did his most unhinged posting in threads on the topic.
Somebody showed me this wonderful thing called the Goggle (sp?) the other day, and it led me to this guy, just on the first page of search results.
Just amazed by this modern technology!
He’s drinking a Coors in that picture, so you pretty much know to disregard him.
No true atheist would drink Coors!
Exactly.
Hunter Thompson, inexplicably, drank Coors.
“Good people drink good beer.” Hunter Thompson
He must have had some self-esteem issues then.
Well, he did blow his own head off. On purpose, and after years of trying to do it by accident.
They surely do hate it when one of their own slips up and says out loud in public the kinds of things they all really believe, but only talk about quietly in private. Can’t let the rubes know what you are really up to.
That’s not what’s going on here. Most of the right-wing elite don’t actually have any problem with abortion.
Erick son of Erick
Karl Rove
~
The Guardian picked up on this. It posits that this crazy shit comes from a 13th century belief that a woman can’t get pregnant if she doesn’t have an orgasm. If a woman is raped and gets pregnant, she must have had an orgasm — therefore, she must have enjoyed it.
Hmm…good to know that all those women with genetic children have orgasms.
a woman can’t get pregnant if she doesn’t have an orgasm.
That can’t be true. Akin has six kids.
All we really know is that his wife has six kids. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Have you never seen When Harry Met Sally?
That belief was in fact current until the late 18th century. Check out Thomas Laqueur’s Making Sex.
Methinks some 13th century Machiavellian feminist somehow inserted this into the belief system, as a noble lie.
Naomi Wolf has been known to write about how women in traditional societies have better sex or something. Someone should ask her about this orgasm thing.
as a noble lie
I’m pretty sure that this phrase does not mean what I think you think it means.
Bet the guy who did is names R_ _ b_ _ t B_rd!
I made a fill-in-the-blank game, although to be fair he sees THAT name in
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
I’m back to Byrd in the Loomis thread. Check out the video, since you just learned recently that he filibustered the 64cra.
You never left, and apparently you never learn
He is incapable of learning.
While I must concede that I lack the medical credentials of a Todd Akin, I suspect that your blood pressure would be much lower if you learned to ignore Manju’s comments.
This applies to several others here as well, all of whom I can diagnose without conducting an examination pursuant to the standard of care established by Bill First.
I take meds for that already and it is under control. Would that Manju was as well.
You have to learn that Southern Democrats were conservatives and not Leftists, yet you pretend to lecture others?
I will not cease from mental strife
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
Till every thread is about Robert Byrd
In LGM’s green and pleasant land
I meant, the mythical feminist was making sure that men engage in unselfish sex. ergo, noble lie…albeit one designed to advance the group not in power, if that is your objection.
I find it interesting that the R/R campaign has come out and said that it (they?) is (are) not opposed to abortion in the case of rape.
Don’t see how that squares with personhoodity that, I think, they (it?) supports. Apparently, it is OK to kill the progeny of rape. Is there an age limit? Could you kill a two-year-old child of a raped woman? Seems likely under the philosophy of Romney/Ryan.
Indeed. Just deprive it of adequate food and health care.
God’s will.
It’ll be interesting to see how R/R’s position (having taken 24 hours to generate outrage) will sit with the base. The base is defending Akin, R/R are not. R/R obvious sniffed the pundit wind and decided this was a loser in that arena. They’d hate to alienate the 6 undecided voters still out there.
Maybe I’m wrong about this, but wasn’t the defense of Polanski far from uniform across the center-left/left segments of the blogosphere?
I could be wrong, but IIRC Atrios for one wasn’t buying the defense of Polanski.
Dhat’s da joke. (Cf.)
I come for the cogent analysis … but I stay for the Simpsons references.
UPDATE: Here’s the Whoopi Goldberg “Rape-Rape” Video.
Whoopi’s not running for office. Whoopi has never run for office ANYWHERE. Besides, Whoopi was in “Ghost,” and Patrick Swayze is dead – Why do you hate poor dead Patrick Swayze?
WOLVERIIIIIIIIIINES!
Your argument is invalid.
~~~
[...] their blighted souls, and may the lousy ideas of the abortion proponents return to hell.Update: Lawyers, Guns and Money takes a dishonest swipe at Stacy McCain while evading the central point of this post. [...]
What I don’t quite understand, apart from the specifics of this particular controversy, is why the Democrats don’t use the “what about rape?” point to hammer the Republicans.
I mean, the ads write themselves. An attractive, older couple wailing and crying because their daughter is being forced to bear her rapist’s child.
And I’m not just talking about hammering the Rethugs during an election year, but hammering them and the forced-birth nutters all the time.
Because Democrats aren’t very good at playing to win. But I agree that doing this is a good way to draw a distinction while pointing out the extremism of the GOP. Hopefully, the Obama campaign will highlight Ryan’s extremism on this issue.
probably because the party believes abortion should be an option for any unwanted pregnancy
Precisely. Plus that just sets up–once again–an argument that’s already used too often: that they’re are abortions for those “good women” and abortions for the “selfish, irresponsible sluts.” How about abortions for women who want/need them, period?
This. Akin’s specific arguments were appalling, but 1)rape exceptions don’t actually make any sense and 2)do almost nothing to protect women in practice.
Yes, his comments are disgusting not because of what they say about his stance on abortion, but what they say about his inability to empathize–for even one second–with someone who has suffered such a trauma.
Actually that would be a bad commercial because it has too many themes that could be confused. Just play the Repub’s words over and over and over again.
Though I hear this is not extremely effective because people simply can’t believe that Republicans are this nuts.
You realize you got the wrong racist Neo-Confederate when you claimed that post was “written” by Stacy McCain. It was hocked up by his concierge “Smitty.”
You can tell the difference because a)Smitty still has a Freeper ID under the name Calhounlovedliberty* and b) Smitty’s not a pussy who blames others when the grift ends and his church tells his sad sack ass to move out from the free digs.
*may or may not be true, but Smitty’s Stormfront ID is “American_Lebensraum”**
**Also probably not true, but you know…I’m sure Smitty visits Stormfront
see the sidekick of everyone’s favorite neoconfederate
And Dear Cthulhu, “blog sidekick” has got to be the saddest job title ever. I’m pretty sure the blog sidekicks were all kicked off of Ark B for being pathetic and useless.
Simpsons references and HHGTG! Mal is on fire
Although a world populated by the offspring of Smitty and Darleen Click would explain how 6 * 9 = 42.
You may want to read a little more carefully.
My bad, Scott, I was going on what Smitty wrote when I got out of the boat AND I wanted to do that thing where I insulted him.
It was hocked up by his concierge “Smitty.”
Or as Scott describes him, his sidekick.
And a stranger piece of religio-jabber I haven’t seen in quite a while. If being criticized in Twitter is the same as being aborted, I’m surprised there’s anyone left alive in this country.
I’ll be okay, ’cause I’m not on twitter…
So now if I criticize some stupid fucking shit a rightie says, I’m not only destroying *his* First Amendment rights, I’m not only destroying the First Amendment itself… I’m also aborting him.
There’s not enough baby powder in all the universe to soothe the chapped behinds of these whiny ass titty babies.
I’m shocked, deeply shocked. Whoopi should immediately be removed from her elected office and prevented from writing laws and legislation ever again.
What’s that you say?
Those who are anti-abortion are not driven by religion to be that way. Religion is just the shield they use to protect them from any inquiry, internal or external, that would require them to examine and justify being anti-abortion.
They can’t make the argument that “women should not be permitted to make this decision because they are women.” They have to say that God told them that no one, man or woman, can make this decision.
WAR ON WOMEN, CONT.: And even Whoopi Goldberg’s shameful comments pale in comparison to Jack the Ripper’s reign of terror in 19th century London, but somehow the Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) never get around to discussing him. Funny, that.
Heh. Indeed. Read the whole thing.
On an almost completely unrelated note does anyone else think that the picture of McCain at the top of his blog bears a resemblance to Oswald Moseley as pictured on his biography?
When he founds the Black Shorts you’ll know I’m right.
Eulalie!
First Wodehouse reference of the thread receives a free roadkill potpie from Mrs Miggins!
“By the time I noticed this story it was over”
Possibly the most tone-deaf part of the comment. I have just sat down to watch Brian Williams report on this as the lead story.
What is more, Glenn Reynolds has been blogging for 11 years and does not have the sense or the ability to look outside the wingnut bubble in order to know that this is a gift to Claire McCaskill, who has already been running ads about how Akin is out of step with Missouri values. Now she has something that says that Akin is a genuine lunatic. This was far from over this morning.
The most important thing I owe Greenwald may be getting into a fight with Reynolds early on so that I lost the temptation to go over there just to see what the rightbloggers were saying.
Since one woman did miscarry once, I can’t wait for PolitiFact to rate that this claim is half-true…
[...] GOP is rightly upset about all of this. Any NORMAL person should be. The problem is the fact that the GOP is no longer the party of NORMAL. When [...]
What I love about LGM is the epistemic closure. Like Steven Colbert’s question that he used to ask interviewees about Bush (“George Bush: Great president, or greatest president?”), the conversations around here tend to sound like, “Conservatism: Evil? Stupid? Or Evil and Stupid?” The difference is, Colbert was joking, whereas the posters here actually think they’re demonstrating their enlightened status by competing to see who can say the nastiest thing about conservatives.
Yes, Akin is very very stupid. But of course it isn’t enough for people here to say that; they have to expand it to the entire anti-abortion position: “Pro-life: Motivated by misogyny? Or by misogyny masquerading as religion? Or by being stupid enough to believe in religion which is misogynist?”
There are certainly examples of blacks who hold views of other blacks that we would term “racist,” Jews who hold views of other Jews that we would term “anti-semitic,” etc., so I’m sure there are examples of women who hold views that would be termed “misogynist.” But when one is so closed-minded that one thinks that a view can only be explained by misogyny even though it is held by 40-50% of women, one might want to check one’s premises.