But wait, there's more. Conservative men are not sluts not matter what. Not Limbaugh who is in marriage #4 and hardly likely to have been chaste before and in between. Serial adulterer and divorcee Newt Gingrich won a southern presidential primary and appeared at the GOP convention. Fellow adulterer and divorcee John McCain gave a speech at the
And there is the liberty thing. Conservatives go on, and on, and on about liberty this, liberty that, liberty today, liberty tomorrow. It's supposed to be their big thing. They want all Americans to enjoy liberty, not like those big gov loving liberals. During the GOP bash The Daily Show got a good dig in at this right wing conceit. A delegate (male) responded to Samantha Bee's query about Romney not be in accord with the party platform banning abortion due to rape and incest with, "Is it Romney's choice to be different from the platform? Well of course, who are we to tell someone how they should act?" He also proffered that the "government has a purpose and we lose sight of that, and the purpose of government is to protect your individual liberties."
Another delegate (female) on Romney's divergence from the platform, "I do not believe for one second that [Romney] had made this decision lightly, it's not for me to judge." Bee concurred that "It's a really personal issue deciding what people's personal issues are," to which the delegate replied "It certainly is." A different delegate (female) declared "That's what our county is, is the individualism. We get to be who we are. I mean everybody gets to choose the path they choose because that's their choice."
Bullshit.
What social conserves want is the small government that gives them the liberty to do whatever they damn well please, AND the big government that they can use to deny liberty to the rest of the population; the right's War on Women is a War on the Liberty of Those Women Who Dare Disagree With The Self Righteous Theocons. It is a project to reduce women to the status of 2nd class citizens whose behavior is determined not by their individual selves, but by the religious right -- like it used to be until the social revolution of the 1920s started the long term revolution of the female half of the western world. Even some so-called libertarians go for this cynical duplicity, Ron and Rand Paul are anti-choice. On The Daily Show convention segment one GOP delegate (male) acknowledged the theocon agenda when he told Bee that "personal liberty is, is the whole arc of our civilization, no question about that," "Except in cases of abortion," Bee countered. "Except in the case of abortion, exactly," he agreed.
It is liberals and moderates who more favor womens' liberty. Assume that a 30 year old woman, married or unmarried, accidentally gets pregnant. She wants to have the kid -- that's fine with your liberal or moderate. It's her choice. If she does not want to continue the pregnancy that too is her liberty according to the moderate or liberal. But not to the theocon who wants her to be punished as a murderer if she is so sinful as to have the procedure. Say that a 14 year old girl is raped by a relative and ends up pregnant. She wants to have the kid -- that's fine with the liberal or moderate. It's her choice. If she does not want to continue the pregnancy that too is her liberty according to the moderate or liberal. But not to the theocon who wants her to be punished as a murderer if she is so sinful to have the procedure.
Accurately labeling the conservative assault on the majority of American women The War on Mainstream Women will give the majority of Americans of the female persuasion and their allies the advantage by making it explicit that theoconservatives whether they be boy or girl are trying to deny the liberty of those who do not buy into their narrow minded, controlling world view. It makes clear that it is particular types of women who are the targets of the anti-liberty campaign. It helps to point out that the theocons are a minority attacking a majority, although if theocons were the majority it would still be wrong. It leaves the men and women of the right less able to deny they are engaged in a war on those women they don't approve of, while it puts them on the spot for their flaming hypocrisy and cynical scams, even as it joins the center and left into a more overt alliance against the damn traditionalists.
It might even give pause to some on the right. To a slice of conservatives who think it is outlandish when they are charged with waging a War on Women when so many female conservatives agree with the premises of the war, but who just might realize that nonconservative women feel that the same premises impinge upon their liberty. It's possible. Might happen.
photo by Rob Kall taken in Philadelphia, Feb 21, 2011
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