The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: Nabubrush on March 17, 2011, 06:31:21 pm
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Article on the Title X mess from the Nation (http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/159227/anti-birth-control-mob-losing-its-grip-congress).
Not sure if anyone has been keeping up with this. You would think the anti-abortion crowd would want people to have access to birth-control so they don't, you know, end up needing abortions. Thankfully it looks like maybe things are turning around a bit.
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You would think the anti-abortion crowd would want people to have access to birth-control so they don't, you know, end up needing abortions.
Even the twinkle in daddy's eye is a LIFE!
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Article on the Title X mess from the Nation (http://www.thenation.com/print/blog/159227/anti-birth-control-mob-losing-its-grip-congress).
Not sure if anyone has been keeping up with this. You would think the anti-abortion crowd would want people to have access to birth-control so they don't, you know, end up needing abortions. Thankfully it looks like maybe things are turning around a bit.
As a person who would seriously like to see the number of abortions in this country reduced to as close to zero as possible, this boggles my mind also. I didn't read the article -- I don't have time at the moment, but I'll come back to it -- but personally I believe that if a woman believes her only choice is to have an abortion, she's as much a victim as her unborn child.
If our duty is to preserve the lives of infants, then it is also to protect women from being in a situation where they're faced with an unwanted pregnancy in the first place. Studies have shown that the likelihood of a woman choosing to terminate an unwanted pregnancy is the same whether abortion is legal or not. For every 100 unwanted pregnancies, the same percentage of babies will die (or fetuses will be terminated, or however lets you sleep at night). So if we reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, the number of abortions sought will naturally fall. Is this hard math? Do right-wingers somehow think that by saying "abortion is bad, m'kay," suddenly thousands of women will just say, "Oh, okay, I guess I'll let my life go ahead and be destroyed, then."
Seriously. Better access to birth control and better sex education (another thing the anti-abortion lobby is usually against) do far more to reduce abortions in developed nations than criminalizing abortion. Abortion is a symptom of other societal ills -- predominately poverty and ignorance -- that should be addressed. If you're not going after the cause, there's no point in criminalizing the effect.
</rant>
Sorry, one of my Issues. I don't even have this conversation with my mother any more, because even though I am far more conservative on this than on any other social issue, she is so far to the right on this one it makes me physically ill to hear her talk about it.
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i kind of want to take a hyper-anti-abortion screed from a website and replace "abortion" with "polio" and "contraception" with "vaccine" just to see how absolutely insane it sounds. maybe also dig up an old anti-polio op.ed. and swap the terms in reverse. just as a thought experiment.
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This goes back to my senior thesis where I proved children are an economic bad (as opposed to a good) that people, when given the choice, demand very very little of. I say all forms of birth control for all people.... for the sake of the economy.
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My wife works in the field of women's health, not that this wasn't already a hot button issue for me. For me, all these issues boil down to one side being pro-women, and the other side being anti, or wanting to control women, or whatever you want to call it. There is no way for me to see anything on the other side in a positive light, unlike basically every other issue that I disagree with that side of my family on. It's as if the hyper-right is just trying to sneak in this backward-ass bullshit because they know everybody is focused on the Arab world blowing up and the collapse of the world economy.
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There is no way for me to see anything on the other side in a positive light
Seriously? Nothing? I can't imagine anyone in his right mind wanting to see the abortion rate increase. It is one thing to be in favor of offering women choice, and other to be in favor of more abortions being performed. Does anybody really think that having an abortion is preferable to not having an unwanted pregnancy in the first place?
Aside from the consequences for the unborn child -- and before anyone tries, you will never convince me that a fetus is not a child -- most abortions bear terrible, life-long consequences for the mother. I know women who have had abortions and remain adamently pro-choice, yet they are still haunted by the physical and emotional ramifications, even decades later.
I know a woman who had a hysterectomy at the age of 25 because her "safe, legal" abortion at the age of 17 was so badly botched that she suffered eight years of intense pain before suffering a ruptured uterus, which nearly killed her. I know a woman who is struggling with infertility and will never be sure if it's because many years ago she was raped, got pregnant, and had an abortion. I know a woman who had an abortion because her abusive ex-fiance threatened to beat her until she miscarried, and now, happily married to someone else with three beautiful kids, she still grieves for the child she never knew.
All these women were victims of terrible circumstances. Certainly, Nabu, you must have sympathy for them. The pro-lifers are concerned for them, too. (Most of us.) We want to protect other women from being forced to make the same terrible decision -- to bear a child they can't or won't raise, or to destroy it.
Some of us miss the mark and focus on the end result of the decision these women have to make, and that's a disservice to both sides. But for most of us -- the silent majority, I think -- it's very much an issue of women's rights. Not the right to choose between two bad options, but the right never be asked to make that choice.
I'm not against women, I'm against those who would force women to be forever labeled a sinner or a saint based on what she does in her darkest moment. And that means I'm in favor of explicit, detailed, and pervasive sex education; universal access to a variety of birth control methods and instruction on how to use them (including the morning-after pill, which has gotten a terrible reputation among pro-lifers because the media doesn't understand science); complete access engaging in a national dialog about the problems involved in how rape is reported and prosecuted, and handled in the media.
If we have all these things, we won't need to criminalize abortion because it will only exist in rare, extreme cases like rape and maternal medical endangerment. But as long as we're locking horns over whether or not a fetus is or is not alive, the terrorists are winning and we're all at risk.
There's not such a gap between us that we can't talk about this like adults. But it's so emotional for so many people that we as a nation rarely get past the "life begins at conception/life begins at birth" argument. I'd like to think we can work at a higher level here.
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I don't think Nabu is saying he is on the side of more abortions.
The problem is that the other side doesn't seem to be against abortions so much as they are against women having sex. If they want fewer abortions but are also against birth control, that seems like the only way to interpret their position.
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You know, sometimes I really miss having that funny cartoon about the talking cats to discuss.
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Did there really used to be a cartoon? It's like a dream I had a long time ago.
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Thanks, Wombat. I could go down the road, but I'll just say I'm surprised that you read what I was saying as I think people should have abortions. Making it harder to get contraceptives will increase the number of abortions. Not even doctors who perform them wantthat to happen. I'll leave it at that.
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I don't think Nabu is saying he is on the side of more abortions.
I don't think he's saying that either, and I think that he should realize that this could be common ground between his position and mine. I would like to start from a position of us both saying, "there should be fewer abortions," and start talking about how we might make that happen without trampling on the rights of women to do what they want to do with their bodies. What I was saying -- poorly, apparently -- is that we must have at least one thing in common, because no sane person thinks abortion is wonderful and great and that everyone should have one. I thought it was a given that Nabu is a sane person, and I was trying to point out where our ideas are similar as a jumping-off point for rational discussion.
But, in spite of myself, I got all wrapped around the axle and got ranty again, so if I offended you in any way, Nabu (or anyone else), I apologize.
The problem is that the other side doesn't seem to be against abortions so much as they are against women having sex. If they want fewer abortions but are also against birth control, that seems like the only way to interpret their position.
I agree with you that some very vocal members of the pro-life crowd are also against women having sex. There are also a lot of people who have a certain set of stereotypes about who is having all these abortions (unwed teenage welfare queens with loose morals) that simply aren't true. (I can't quote you numbers at the moment on what percentage of abortions are performed on married women over the age of 18, but it's higher than you'd think.) People who are pro-life, but anti-birth-control and anti-sex ed (or in favor of abstinence-only sex ed) make me want to tear my hair out and scream. They make the rest of us look bad.
I just take issue with two main ideas that Nabu seems to be putting forward: 1) That he and I cannot find any common ground in this issue because I'm on side A and he's on side B, and 2) that I can't be pro-life and a feminist at the same time.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but that's what I'm getting from over in these here cheap seats.
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i um don't think you're on different sides here
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Sorry - I thought it was understood that the other side is not the pro-life/anti-abortion crowd, it's the crowd that considers women chattel and feels like the solution to the abortion issue is public execution of abortion doctors. I don't include any of you under that umbrella.
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What I'm saying is there are shades of gray here. I am pro-life, I believe that abortion is murder and it is our moral duty to end the practice to the greatest extent possible. But I think many of my fellow Christians are very misguided about how to best accomplish that.
So you tell me -- are we on the same side? Is there any situation in which you would call yourself pro-life? Because I don't think there are any circumstances under which anyone would call me pro-choice. I am not in favor of policies which allow us to keep pretending that a baby in utero isn't alive.
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Because I don't think there are any circumstances under which anyone would call me pro-choice.
Are there any circumstances when you believe abortion is justified?
If so, who gets to decide when that is?
If you believe that the woman involved should have the ability to make the decision, then you're pro-choice, at least to an extent.
I think the problem with the abortion debate in this country is that it confuses a moral issue with a political issue. One side is talking about the morality of the act of abortion, the other is talking about the role of government in our lives.
I think it's entirely possible to be both stringently anti-abortion and stringently pro-choice. You can believe that it's morally wrong to have an abortion. You can also consistently believe that it's not the role of the government to make that sort of moral decision for its citizens.
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You know, sometimes I really miss having that funny cartoon about the talking cats to discuss.
Why not combine the two?
http://achewood.com/index.php?date=05172007
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Are there any circumstances when you believe abortion is justified?
If so, who gets to decide when that is?
If you believe that the woman involved should have the ability to make the decision, then you're pro-choice, at least to an extent.
I think if a woman is raped, she should be allowed to have an abortion because she did not willfully engage in unprotected sex -- it's not her fault. I believe that if circumstances arise after conception that would cause the mother's life to be endangered by carrying the child to term, she and her doctor should consider carefully whether it's worth the risk to try. I do not think women should be allowed to have an abortion because she forgot to take a couple of pills, or because her boyfriend doesn't like the way condoms feel. Does that make me pro-choice? I don't think most of the staff at Planned Parenthood would think so.
I think the problem with the abortion debate in this country is that it confuses a moral issue with a political issue. One side is talking about the morality of the act of abortion, the other is talking about the role of government in our lives.
I think it's entirely possible to be both stringently anti-abortion and stringently pro-choice. You can believe that it's morally wrong to have an abortion. You can also consistently believe that it's not the role of the government to make that sort of moral decision for its citizens.
But the government *does* act as a moral agent at times. We as a society have decided that it's not OK for civilians to kill people. When a guy came into my grandparents house and killed them, we didn't say, "well, that was his moral choice." We said, "He's a bad person who can't be trusted in society, let's lock him up for the rest of his life."
Ending the life of an unborn child is, to me, as morally reprehensible as murdering an elderly person. Just because the child can't protest, fight back, or scream in terror doesn't mean that life has less value than anyone else's -- including his mother's. If a woman bears a child, takes him home, cares for him for two weeks, and then intentionally drowns him in the bathtub, will she not be prosecuted? It's her own child, after all, and her choice to decide if she wants to raise him. So it's a victimless crime, right?
We've decided as a nation that it's OK to kill certain people in certain circumstances, like during wartime and in self-defense. I'm OK with this gray area, and abortion certainly has some gray area itself. (This is why I would make exceptions for rape and endangerment of the mother's life.) Our government is still arguing about some of the other gray areas, but I'm opposed to killing people even in situations where others might say it's OK -- like capital punishment. If I'm opposed to letting the state kill the guy who murdered my grandmother, it stands to reason that I would not want women to be allowed to put their own children to death.
But unlike a lot of hard-right pro-choicers, I'm not naive enough to believe that I can enforce all my morals on others. Abortion is wrong, but the best remedy for that is to eliminate unintended pregnancies to the greatest extent possible. We can't keep people from having sex; we can't force women not to terminate their pregnancies if they are really determined to do so. The best we can do is make it so easy for women to not get unexpectedly pregnant that they never have to choose.
But I think that there are a few moral absolutes. Murder is wrong, and we as a nation have agreed on that and put into practice laws that punish people who ignore our agreed-upon moral code.
What we can't agree on is the exact definition of "murder" in all situations, and that's where we get into trouble with the abortion issue. I think it's murder, most pro-choicers don't; after that, we don't seem to have much to say to one another.
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All I have to say on this issue is that my views are far outside the norm.
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I am probably not contributing that hasn't already been said, but...
Yeah, there are people who legitimately care about the unborn and the moral implications of abortion. There are also people who use it as an excuse to be a cock to strangers and to try to punish and control women. I read a piece a while back where some rabid anti-abortion protester (male, natch) said "As soon as I saw these pictures [of aborted fetuses], I knew this was something I had to devote my life to." And I thought, "No, you found a way you could go scream at random women in the street and not get arrested for it." Yeah, I know, I shouldn't claim to read his mind, but it seemed that way to me.
I always come back to this article on women who picket the clinic one day only to be in it the next (http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/anti-tales.html). It's easy to assume other people make bad choices and should have to live with them, but how does your mind change when you're the one with the problem?
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Hypocrisy is rampant, of course. I've never been in the position to have to choose between an unwanted pregnancy and an abortion. (Not that my daughter was planned, but she definitely was wanted once we knew she was on her way.) If I were to find out that I were somehow pregnant today, it would be a nightmare. There is a very high probability that any other kids we would have would also be autistic, and I can barely handle the two I have. I know that if I were to have any more children, it would break me.
So my husband had a vasectomy. Before his vasectomy, we used two forms of birth control just to be sure. (Technically, we're still using 2 forms of birth control, but I'll be going off the pill soon.) I know that I could not have an abortion, no matter how badly another pregnancy would destroy my life. So I do everything I can to make sure I don't get pregnant again.
How hard is that? I mean, assuming you have good insurance and access to a doctor and know your options. It's called being a responsible adult.
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I mean, assuming you have good insurance and access to a doctor and know your options.
Big assumptions.
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But the government *does* act as a moral agent at times.
Very true. In a sense, all government is coercion. The question is "When is it OK for government to exercise that power of coercion?" In my opinion, where there is a genuine, legitimate divide over the morality of an action, a government of a society which professes to be free has an obligation to butt out.
JL, what about where the parties tried to take proper precautions, but the precautions failed, e.g. the rubber broke?
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So my husband had a vasectomy. Before his vasectomy, we used two forms of birth control just to be sure. (Technically, we're still using 2 forms of birth control, but I'll be going off the pill soon.) I know that I could not have an abortion, no matter how badly another pregnancy would destroy my life. So I do everything I can to make sure I don't get pregnant again.
How hard is that? I mean, assuming you have good insurance and access to a doctor and know your options. It's called being a responsible adult.
It's very hard JL, especially if you are homeless, addicted to something, dealing with chronic medical issues or mental health issues, with a partner who would kill you if you asked him to use a condom and for many other reasons. All of these things can happen to people who are responsible. Plus I can't also forget young people start having sex long before they're responsible adults. I've supported young women in their early 20's who have been lured into the sex trade and are so far from being adults it's astonishing.
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Assuming access and insurance and knowledge is perhaps not such a safe assumption these days.
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Very true. In a sense, all government is coercion. The question is "When is it OK for government to exercise that power of coercion?" In my opinion, where there is a genuine, legitimate divide over the morality of an action, a government of a society which professes to be free has an obligation to butt out.
JL, what about where the parties tried to take proper precautions, but the precautions failed, e.g. the rubber broke?
That sucks. I know lots and lots of people who have been there.
But the inconvenience of having a kid when you weren't ready for one (or carrying a child for 9 months and then giving it up for adoption) does not outweigh the value of the life you (inadvertently) created. Your right to control what happens to your body ends at the placenta, sorry.
I will say, as I stated above, that I support improved access to emergency contraceptives, like the "morning-after pill." Most pro-lifers oppose them only because they don't understand how they work, mainly because science reporting is horrible in this country. I think that better access to emergency contraception would go further than any other single policy change in this country to reduce the number of abortions that occur, and pro-lifers should do the research, find out what Plan B is really about, and embrace it.
But failing Plan B, if you've done everything you can to avoid getting pregnant and you're still pregnant, well, that sucks. But even if abortion were allowed in those circumstances, too, if we could cut the number of unintended pregnancies down to a statistically insignificant number, I would be satisfied that we'd done all we can. I mean, theft is illegal, we all agree that people shouldn't do it, but a percentage of our citizens continue to steal in spite of our collective morals. Sometimes, you just have to decide that close is close enough.
Smells and LFM: Yes, I agree. Assuming access, insurance, and knowledge is laughable. But that's why my crusade (unlike the kinds of pro-lifers who end up on the news) is not to villify women who seek abortions, but to improve the healthcare system and fight for comprehensive sex ed from an earlier age in the public schools.
That's why I voted for Obama -- by my logic, providing universal health care is more important to the pro-life movement than overturning Roe v. Wade.
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JL, you are a smart lady who is explaining things I have been trying to put into words for a long time.
I am pretty "pro-choice," I think. But it does trouble me.
I am 22 years old, and I have trouble remembering to pay my rent every month.
What troubles me is that you can say that our government should "butt out" of issues where there is a clear divide among our citizens as to the morality of an activity, but there have been at least a few historical situations where our government did the opposite of that, and most people agree it was a good thing.
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Your right to control what happens to your body ends at the placenta, sorry.
Honest and sincerely held opinions differ on that question. That's the problem.
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What troubles me is that you can say that our government should "butt out" of issues where there is a clear divide among our citizens as to the morality of an activity, but there have been at least a few historical situations where our government did the opposite of that, and most people agree it was a good thing.
JL didn't say that, I did.
So how does the government decide which side of a moral divide to support? Arguably those situations are more about society reaching a consensus on a moral issue (slavery for example, wherein we had to reach consensus through the bloodiest war in our history) rather than government resolving the issue by fiat.
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Honest and sincerely held opinions differ on that question. That's the problem.
I think another factor is, some feel that one side is a religious view, and that in this country, religious views aren't supposed to get special precidence over other honest and sincerely held opinions. So it's not just about what government can and can't butt into, it's about how much religion should butt into goverment.
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Honest and sincerely held opinions differ on that question. That's the problem.
That's not the problem. That's the dividing line, for me, between pro-life and pro-choice. (Those are terrible labels, BTW. Who is actually anti-life?)
The point is, it's OK, even preferable, to have people on both sides of that line. But it's also important to remember that both positions are valid. Just because we disagree doesn't mean we shouldn't bother talking. Which I think is what rubbed me the wrong way about what Nabu said here:
There is no way for me to see anything on the other side in a positive light
It bugs me that we are so polarized that we can't look objectively at the issue and say from the pro-life side, "I believe abortion is horrible, but maybe making it illegal isn't the best way to eliminate it (viz. the war on drugs). Or, on the pro-choice side, "You know what, you have a point. I think women should have the right to choose, but maybe we should consider how we as a nation might give women some better options -- more choices before conception -- that might prevent some of these unnecessary abortions."
I don't expect everyone (or anyone) to agree with me on everything (or anything). But I think it's important to talk about where we can find some common ground (better access to healthcare and birth control benefits everyone) even if the philosophies that got us there are different. I know that many people do not believe that life begins at conception, or that the well-being of the mother outweighs the life of the child. I don't understand it, but I acknowledge it and don't expect to change it.
I won't waste my breath trying to convert people to my way of thinking. I am about building a coalition to benefit the greatest number of people in the shortest amount of time. The path of least resistance -- the largest positive course of action on which the majority can agree.
In the end, I don't care what you believe or why you believe it, as long as you vote for my guy on election day.
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JL, in this case like others, your problem is that you are a reasonable person who holds opinions and beliefs that are unfortunately supported by a large number of very loud, very unreasonable people who pretty clearly have other underlying agendas. It's obviously a very frustrating position to be in.
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In short, as I say few things shortly, I believe that to take away a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy upon her choosing is to make women's rights fundamentally unequal and impaired.
Because to force a woman to be burdened with eighteen years of responsibility because of a rape or a protection failure or a youthful mistake is to create a means to shackle the rights of any woman of birthing age at any time. It becomes a weapon of men to negate any and all women's rights with what can be a few minutes of a biological act.
I am unnerved by the idea of terminating a ball of cells that might one day eventually be human, of course, but weighed against the rights of 51% of the population, which is more important ethically becomes clear to me.
Difficult but clear nonetheless.
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JL, in this case like others, your problem is that you are a reasonable person who holds opinions and beliefs that are unfortunately supported by a large number of very loud, very unreasonable people who pretty clearly have other underlying agendas. It's obviously a very frustrating position to be in.
I have often said that people ought to have to pass an IQ test before they agree with me in public. This would solve a lot of my problems in life.
In short, as I say few things shortly, I believe that to take away a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy upon her choosing is to make women's rights fundamentally unequal and impaired.
Because to force a woman to be burdened with eighteen years of responsibility because of a rape or a protection failure or a youthful mistake is to create a means to shackle the rights of any woman of birthing age at any time. It becomes a weapon of men to negate any and all women's rights with what can be a few minutes of a biological act.
I am unnerved by the idea of terminating a ball of cells that might one day eventually be human, of course, but weighed against the rights of 51% of the population, which is more important ethically becomes clear to me.
Difficult but clear nonetheless.
There is no reason why the fathers of these children shouldn't also be held responsible. The inequity is not that the women are held responsible, but that men, all to often, are not.
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That's not the problem. That's the dividing line, for me, between pro-life and pro-choice. (Those are terrible labels, BTW. Who is actually anti-life?)
The point is, it's OK, even preferable, to have people on both sides of that line. But it's also important to remember that both positions are valid. Just because we disagree doesn't mean we shouldn't bother talking. Which I think is what rubbed me the wrong way about what Nabu said here:
I said something about not being able to see the other side in any kind of positive light.
I should not have even started this topic, and I knew better. JL, you are not "the other side" being referred to in my post. I know it is pretty normal to see this as being divided up into pro/anti or pro/pro, depending on which side you are on, but that's not the division I was trying to address.
The other side I was talking about was the people who want to de-fund contraception, de-fund AIDS screening, make it impossible for people to use private insurance for their own care, don't want to prevent teen pregnancy, would rather defer spending money now and don't care that we'll have to spend four times as much later on unwanted pregnancies, would rather de-fund counseling and education, annual exams, screenings for breast and cervical cancer, sexually transmitted diseases, and hypertension and blood pressure so they can zap funding for contraception, because it's so fuck*ng evil and morally wrong.
If that is you, then I guess we're on opposite sides. If that isn't you, then I guess I wasn't talking about you. If it sounds like I'm a little stirred, it's because those fuck*ng bastards do things like this and when you and I feel like we're on opposite sides, they win. And that really pisses me off. I do think we can have fruitful discussions, but please don't read what I said as saying that I don't think there's anything positive in your position, because I wasn't talking about you.
Now, if y'all want to talk about the larger issues pro v. con, that's fine with me, but that's not why I posted this and I'm including me out.
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On the perfect world where men could be forced to follow through on the responsibility of their children, I would certainly re-evaluate my position.
I imagine a lot of political stances would need to be re-examined in a utopia such as that.
However, on this Earth and in this America, our system of law does not counter-balance the biological endentured servitude of motherhood very well at all and I doubt that day will come any time soon.
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What Ash said. Whoa, did I really just say that?
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[stuff]
Thanks for clarifying. I jumped the gun and read between the lines and executed all kinds of other cliche metaphors, and I promise I will settle down and try to be reasonable now.
The people of whom you speak, who do not see the connection between (abstinence-only sex ed, reducing access to birth control, etc) and (teen pregnancy rates, abortion rates, STI infection rates) make me want to stab myself in the eye. Cause and effect, people. It's fundamental.
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What went through my hung-over day-after-exams mind after I dragged myself out of bed at 1:30 in the afternoon and ate my breakfast bacon:
'Title X? Huh... this must be an old thread, no way a new topic gets to three pages in one day.'
*opens thread*
'Ooooooooh.'
You are all very reasonable people and I wish it was you guys making these decisions instead of everyone else.
make me want to stab myself in the eye. Cause and effect, people. It's fundamental.
Stab them maybe? That'd be some cause and effect.
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Plus, condoms and pills for everybody. Rock on my Miggroids.
I'm otherwise ignoring this thread, but want to point out that while Asherdan may not exactly be pro-choice, he's definitely pro-boning.
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I will say, as I stated above, that I support improved access to emergency contraceptives, like the "morning-after pill."
I lied.
Thank god for that pill and Planned Parenthood for providing it on very short notice. It's much easier to talk a Mormon into taking Plan B than getting an abortion, and I ain't a salesman.
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Thanks for clarifying. I jumped the gun and read between the lines and executed all kinds of other cliche metaphors, and I promise I will settle down and try to be reasonable now.
The people of whom you speak, who do not see the connection between (abstinence-only sex ed, reducing access to birth control, etc) and (teen pregnancy rates, abortion rates, STI infection rates) make me want to stab myself in the eye. Cause and effect, people. It's fundamental.
I appreciate you doing this. Thank you. I think part of the problem is that (those people) like to use hot-button issues to rally people to their cause and get things accomplished in this back-handed way. These foofaraws also serve to muddy the water and get people stirred up and arguing over other things so they don't pay quite as close attention to the way things (civil rights, the american way, etc) are getting eroded.
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Welp, we talked ourselves off of that ledge. Good job people.
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Sigh.
I hate that the level of political discourse in this country has gotten so low that people who agree more than they disagree can still yell at each other for hours, and then feel even more justified in entrenching themselves in their position when they're done.
Note: this isn't what just happened here. What happened here required all parties to think rationally and respond to things the other parties actually said, not what was inferred. This, unfortunately, doesn't happen all that much any more.