The Republican war on women

[Salome]

What does anyone gain from this?

Abortion is the issue through which the right in the US has been able to court white nationalists and white evangelicals without saying the quiet parts out loud. Without the rabid support of those two factions, the GOP cannot win. Their own internal reports told them they needed to embrace diversity and more popular politics to survive as a party, but the hardcore right, supported by the extreme right billionaire class did the opposite. They have instead doubled down on white nationalism and issues like abortion to keep those factions in lockstep. Which is why white evangelicals will breathe fire about abortion, but shrug at children and families being terrorized at our borders.

Their stated goals are to get these laws passed so the courts have to re-litigate RvW. Which is also why the GOP has broken our government to stack the court. But the actual goal is to stay in power no matter what.

Evangelicals, who have developed almost an antipathy for facts.

More specifically, we should clarify it is white evangelicals, at least in the US. The majority of black evangelicals in the US do not vote with these politics, regardless of individual personal belief. In the US anti-abortion is clearly part of the white nationalist agenda.

But I think there's more to it than this, though, even though I can't quite identify it -- some sort of performative and threatening nastiness, in which they're saying something like "Look at all these laws we can pass to control you, no matter how murderous and nonsensical they may be."

This is key to the mindset. Which is why Trump speaks to them despite his obvious hypocrisy on these issues. It’s the politics of bullying and white fragility, tbh. They are terrified of diversity and those fears are constantly spurred by the churches they attend and the media they consume.

 

[Rose Karuna]

I don't want to take away their agency, because there are some people who sincerely believe that abortion should not be allowed except in maybe the most egregious of circumstances. I don't want to conflate those people with the kind that really have not ever questioned and search their faith for what they believe. But that latter kind is rather rare in the circle of people that we are discussing. Environment is a powerful shaper of opinion, especially on youth, but There are some people who are sincere. There are always zealots in every group.

Understood, generally though, people who I've met like this are satisfied with applying their ethics to their own lives and not to other peoples lives. Decisions people make for themselves are personal and none of my business. I only show my claws when they try and push their morals and opinions onto me and threaten to vastly change or end my life and the lives of others who do not subscribe to their morals and thinking.

 

[Innula Zenovka]

I don't want to take away their agency, because there are some people who sincerely believe that abortion should not be allowed except in maybe the most egregious of circumstances. I don't want to conflate those people with the kind that really have not ever questioned and search their faith for what they believe. But that latter kind is rather rare in the circle of people that we are discussing. Environment is a powerful shaper of opinion, especially on youth, but There are some people who are sincere. There are always zealots in every group.

In my experience -- which is admittedly pretty much restricted to my older Catholic relatives back when I had older relatives (now I'm the older relative, and greatly enjoying being the eccentric and somewhat louche and bohemian one) and older Hindu in-laws -- people with principled religious objections to abortions generally seem to be a lot more compassionate and liberal when it comes to considering people's real-life circumstances.

I well recall one family discussion over dinner when two of my brothers in law (both doctors) was discussing some new judgment establishing the right to medical privacy of teenagers seeking contraception and abortion advice and my then mother-in-law chiming in -- in her fractured English rather than her native Gujarati, to make sure I understood her meaning -- to the effect that of course girls had to be able to discuss these things with their doctors without their family knowing, "because who knows what her uncles or cousins haven't forced her to do?", which would, my father-in-law sadly explained, certainly potentially be an issue back in India when sons and their wives and children tend (or tended then, in Gujarat), to live in a family compound belonging to the head of the family unless they have to move out of the area for work or some other reason.

The way that people like these legislators seem deliberately to espouse nonsensical positions -- insist on mandating medical procedures that no more exist than do perpetual motion machines -- out of supposed religious conviction that somehow rings false with me.

People whose genuine religious convictions seem to force them into absurd or inhumane conclusions, or absurdly inhumane ones, generally tend also to have enough humility to realise that conclusions they've reached don't sit too well with the supposedly wise and benevolent deity they worship -- the God of the Roman Catholics or the lords of karma and the Lady Gayatri (my in-laws' family deity) -- so they must in some way have misinterpreted the deity's views on the matter, or misapplied them in their reasoning.

It's the attitude of "God's a complete asshole with women and He wants me to be one too" that I realise is clearly not unusual in the US that seems so odd to me.

 

[Beebo Brink]

The way that people like these legislators seem deliberately to espouse nonsensical positions -- insist on mandating medical procedures that no more exist than do perpetual motion machines -- out of supposed religious conviction that somehow rings false with me.

One part of this problem (although not all of it, by any means) is that the "nonsensical" part isn't as clear as it should be to large numbers of older white men because they are mind-boggling ignorant of how women's bodies work. They are also arrogant enough to discount medical opinions as being politically biased, because again, they have no clear idea of what is being discussed. When "the details" are completely opaque, it's easy to talk themselves into believing that doctors are just trying to be obstructive.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

One part of this problem (although not all of it, by any means) is that the "nonsensical" part isn't as clear as it should be to large numbers of older white men because they are mind-boggling ignorant of how women's bodies work. They are also arrogant enough to discount medical opinions as being politically biased, because again, they have no clear idea of what is being discussed. When "the details" are completely opaque, it's easy to talk themselves into believing that doctors are just trying to be obstructive.

This is true, it also does not help when congresscritters who started off their adult life as F%&king OB/GYNs spouting BS like 'If its a real rape, the body shuts down [I think that it was Gingrey who spouted that little bit of nonsense, if it wasn't him, he certainly backed it up. And he was/is Catholic too...

So, some of it is just stupidity, but a lot of it is malice; plain and simple.

 

[Brenda Archer]

 

[Brenda Archer]

Also in this thread (it’s all very good)

 

[Salome]

Just because an example of this popped up today — the complicity of “conservative” women in the white nationalist agenda of the GOP is a key part of how they now wage their ongoing war on women. Obviously, throughout history there have been useful idiots of a certain population willing to lobby against their own personal rights for status but certain individuals give the game away, The intersection of white nationalism and misogyny (at least in the US) is never a coincidence. Haley is being groomed by the GOP for 2024. This is her laying foundations.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Service, sacrifice and heritage, eh? A heritage built upon owning others as slaves, a heritage built upon going to war to uphold owning slaves, a heritage of using that symbol to terrorize descendants of slaves for one hundred years after losing said war.

 

[Aribeth Zelin]

Service, sacrifice and heritage, eh? A heritage built upon owning others as slaves, a heritage built upon going to war to uphold owning slaves, a heritage of using that symbol to terrorize descendants of slaves for one hundred years after losing said war.

Don't forget the heritage of the 1% keeping the rest of the southern populace under control, not wanting to let them go out west and own their own land, and trying to make the western states -their- personal fiefdoms.

The numbers of idiots who think that somehow their ancestors had enough money to do more than subsist, much less own other people, is astounding sometimes.

 

[Jolene Benoir]

Opinion: Sarah Pitlyk Isn't Qualified To Be A Federal Judge. That's Why Republicans Made Her One.

On Wednesday afternoon, someone with almost no courtroom experience was given a lifetime job as a federal district court judge. Sarah Pitlyk has never tried a case, taken a deposition, or argued a motion, the American Bar Association noted when it unanimously determined she was not qualified to be a federal judge. Among her many shortcomings, it cited “the absence of any trial or even real litigation experience.”

But her appointment to a job she is so clearly unqualified for was no surprise, because she passes the only litmus test that matters for President Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Senate: She is an extreme opponent of reproductive rights and freedoms. She was awarded a federal judgeship not because she’s qualified for it — she’s obviously not — but precisely because she’s devoted her career to undermining constitutional freedoms that the vast majority of Americans have long voiced their support for.

Here’s just a taste of Pitlyk’s record. She is a lawyer at the Thomas More Society, an ultraconservative, anti-abortion law firm, and she opposes the Affordable Care Act’s birth control benefit, calling the use of contraception “evil,” a “seriously wrongful” act, and “a grave moral wrong.” She (unsuccessfully) defended Iowa’s unconstitutional 6-week abortion ban, and she defended David Daleiden — an anti-abortion operative who was behind the 2015 video smear campaign against Planned Parenthood. He and his conspirators were just ordered to pay $2.27 million in penalties for breaking the law.

 

[Katheryne Helendale]

Is there a way to impeach federal judges? I mean, there's got to be a way to undo all the damage Trump has done to our judicial system, among a host of other things, right?

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Is there a way to impeach federal judges? I mean, there's got to be a way to undo all the damage Trump has done to our judicial system, among a host of other things, right?

You can impeach and remove every last one of the motherfuckers if you have the votes