Thursday, April 12, 2012

You've heard of J.Lo and J.Woww - well prepare yourself for RWoW


J.Lo

RWoW- Republican War on Woman 

- the latest hot political trend (RWoW - patent pending CoD). 
Now I would like to take a certain political party at their word when they say there are not waging a “War on Woman”. Just because some Misogynist (and I do not use that term lightly) Republican state senator1said in support of a bill to repeal his state’s equal pay law that the reason women make less is because ‘Money is more important for men’. Nor would a comment from some woman hating Georgia Republican state representative2 comparing woman to pregnant cows and pigs in support of a bill that that would make it illegal for women who are carrying stillborns to abort the baby. And certainly not the Republican governor3 who championed the repeal of his state’s equal pay law or the staff of a certain Republican presidential candidate4 who could not answer a simple question about whether he supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first federal law signed by President Obama, in 2009, which makes it easier for women to sue for pay discrimination.  Nor legislation5 so extreme as to declare a woman pregnant two weeks before she conceives.
Now here's the facts..............
I am just another Old White Guy
1                  State Sen. Glenn Grothman made the remarks following a recent decision to repeal his state’s equal pay law, a move that makes it more difficult for victims of wage discrimination to file lawsuits for lost earnings and back wages. Senator Grothman said that whatever wage gap exists is because women are more focused on raising children. “Take a hypothetical husband and wife who are both lawyers, but the husband is working 50 or 60 hours a week, going all out, making 200 grand a year. The woman takes time off, raises kids, is not go, go, go. Now they're 50 years old. The husband is making 200 grand a year, the woman is making 40 grand a year. It wasn’t discrimination. There was a different sense of urgency in each person. You could argue that money is more important for men,” he said. “I think a guy in their first job, maybe because they expect to be a breadwinner someday, may be a little more money-conscious. To attribute everything to a so-called bias in the workplace is just not true.”. Thank you Senator Caveman.

Yep another old White Guy
2                  Georgia Republican state representative Terry England gave a speech in which he said his experience on farms convinced him that woman should be forced to have their babies after 20 weeks of pregnancy. In debates over Georgia Bill 954 which would ban abortions after 20 weeks even if the baby is not expected to live, England recalled the time he had spent with livestock.
“Life gives us many experiences,” he explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”
England than continued while discussing dog and hog hunting and chicken fighting.  “You know a few years ago, I had a man come to me in our store, it was when we were debating, talking about dog and hog hunting, I believe, and at that point there was some language inserted in there that dealt with chicken fighting. And the young man called me to the side and he said, ‘I want to tell you one thing.’ And y’all, this is salt of the Earth people I’m talking about, someone I would have never in a hundred years expected to tell me what he told me that day.” Mr. Terry, I want to tell you something. You tell those folks down there when they stop killing babies, they can have every chicken I’ve got.”
So the offer from guy who conducts chickens fights to the guy who wants to force women to carry a dead fetus inside of them is that he will give up his chickens. Brings a tear to my eye.

damn 3 for 3 (okay younger)
3                  The Republican governor (Scott Walker of Wisconsin) signed the repeal of a 2009 law allowing the victims of wage discrimination to pursue damages in state court, which is easier than filing a federal complaint. The principal reason for the original law was to narrow a significant gap in compensation between men and women. . (Note to self Gov. Walker also exempted male-dominated sectors of government employees (police, firefighters) from his no-public-bargaining rule, but applied the rule fully to female-dominated sectors (teachers, social workers, etc.).





booyaah Number 4
4           Said Gov. Walker was warmly embraced during the Wisconsin presidential primary last month by Mitt Romney, who won that state. “I applaud your governor,” said Mr. Romney, who also called him a “hero” and a “man of courage.”. On Wednesday morning, his staff could not answer a simple question about whether Mr. Romney supports the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, the first federal law signed by President Obama, in 2009, which makes it easier for women to sue for pay discrimination. A few hours later, the Romney campaign put out a bland statement saying he supports pay equity and “is not looking to change current law.” Mr. Romney has also said he wants to “get rid of” Planned Parenthood, just as Mr. Walker ended state financing for nine Planned Parenthood clinics in Wisconsin last year.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, in 2011, states enacted 135 new reproductive healthcare laws. Personhood amendments, transvaginal ultrasounds, and attacks on contraception actually mean that the war on American women is ongoing. 

BTW RNS spokesperson Sean Spicer stated that using ‘war’ in the description of an assault on women’s reproductive rights “borders on unpatriotic.”  That’s a good one…..  Feel free to google Republican accusations of Obama and his war on (fill in the blank).

I have raised one very strong daughter that I am very proud of and have assisted in the raising of two step-daughters.  I will in no way stand quiet and allow a bunch of old white guys decide what is appropriate or correct in women’s rights. If you have a dick you have no right to impose your rules on woman. You have no idea.
And to think of all those embryos you care so deeply about that is until they come out and you can start to bitch about them for not paying income tax.


Read what someone who has a little more at stake in this than me wrote-
Soraya Chemaly: 10 Reasons the Rest of the World Thinks the U.S. Is Nuts


9 comments:

  1. It is a war. Wars happen when the under educated don't know what the issues are. Those in power fool them and lead them to believe that if they will be taken care of if they follow them - for they know what is best. Thank you for trying to keep us educated. Great article.

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  2. The republicans are far too conservative, and frankly, acting like idiots.
    The democrats are far liberal, and seem to think the answer to every question is bigger government.
    Where are the middle of the road independent thinkers going to find someone that represents our view, balance and reason?
    The way this race is going, I think we will have to vote for "OTHER"

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  3. Good post. I think the Reps definitely miscalculated on this one. It is standard politics to try to divide us and appeal to one side of the division - hopefully, the bigger one. But in this case it does not appear that they calculated the two sides very well. Abortion may have been a tossup, but a lot of what followed was not. They divided all right, but ended up angering a lot of women - whether it sticks or not is still up in the air. However, it appears Mitt is definitely on a thin line, one side has the idiots you point out and their supporters, the other contains a lot of women. If I had to bet I would lay odds that all we are going to hear about from this point on is the economy, jobs, and big government trying to smother us. My hope is that Mitt has to pick one of the idiots as his Veep, Marco Rubio or one of the others and that guy keeps it up. Meanwhile, this spring saw record breaking temperatures across the country and they just posted a very rare warning about a bunch of tornadoes in OK for tomorrow. Yeah, outlawing contraception will fix that.

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  4. "If you have a dick you have no right to impose your rules on woman. You have no idea."

    So, let's see if I've got this right. Unless you're a woman you have "..no right .." and "..no idea.." to discuss women's issues, but you can be an expert on drug use and addiction although you've never really used narcotic drugs (not for extended periods of time). Is that correct?

    I'm referring to your Jan 17th post in "Ahhh...Senator - your fly is open" where I explained from my personal experience the risks with addiction if providing people with free/legal narcotic drugs. An argument that with no personal experience of your own you dismissed with comments like "..unfounded" and many other strong opinions. Reading your responses there, one would think you're an expert in drug use/addiction. But how can you have any idea since you've never experience it..?

    One last point - for a group (i.e. liberals) that claim to hate "war" so much, you're throwing around that word awful lightly. Keep it in perspective - this is NOT war. If both sides can keep the rhetoric to a minimum, this can be a healthy debate on many important issues. If both sides continue to act as they have (which this blog encourages), the otherwise productive debate will diminish to personal attacks - nothing more.

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  5. JF, I agree with you that the word "war" is overused and has become an inflammatory bit of rhetoric. However, I am confused by your question. As a conservative don't you believe in minimizing government? They why do you believe government has the right to decide whether a woman can use contraception/have an abortion or whether someone can use drugs? Do not conservatives believe those types of decisions are best left to the individual?

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    1. My question had nothing to do with my position. I intentionally avoided expressing my opinion in the previous response because I wanted to focus just on the inconsistencies in CoD's logic.

      That said, (again) stop putting words in my mouth. When did I say the govt. has the right to decide whether a woman can use contraception/have an abortion... and all of these other things you think I said? If we can keep the rhetoric to a minimum, I'll tell you what my position is.

      I'm fiscally conservative but morally liberal. That means I don't want the govt. (for the most part) telling me what I can and can't do, but on the other hand I also don't want them taking my money. Case in point - maybe some (or all) drugs should be legalized, but I certainly don't want to pay for others to get "high". That's what CoD was arguing - which I disagreed with. But if I have to pay for someone else's drugs, then why shouldn't other people pay for my beer ... or golf ... ? I believe in freedom of choice, but also personal responsibility. Now before you go too far with this, that doesn't mean I'm for "every man/woman for themselves" either. There are many cases where people need a helping hand to get back up, too many to go into.

      I'll get back to my question in response to CoD below.

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    2. JF, I think I understand. Your reply was intended to show what you consider the inconsistency of COD's positions, not argue that women shouldn't decide for themselves questions of abortion/contraception. I would like to correct one thing here, misunderstanding someone's argument or pointing out that they have incorrectly quoted Obama is not "putting words in their mouths". The first is an error and the second is a correction.

      I too believe in fiscal responsibility - the issue is always what exactly does that mean? Is the "war on drugs" fiscally responsible? Is it fiscally responsible to fight real wars with borrowed money? Is it fiscally responsible to regulate mining? From my personal experience, I have sat in meetings where the cost of allowing workers to be exposed to hazardous, cancer causing, chemicals was deemed acceptable. Is that fiscally responsible? Is putting billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year fiscally responsible? I'm not throwing these out as debate topics or to put words in your mouth, but rather to illustrate why, over the years, I've come to regard the phrase "fiscally responsible" as not very clear.

      What is interesting is that you clearly put great weight on personal experience with a topic. It is those personal experiences - my own and my parents - that lead me to be very skeptical of most corporate actions and of market solutions. I've seen much more Dilbert and Massey Coal than I have logic and rationality.

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  6. JF - to your first point - nowhere in my proposed legislation for anything would it make anyone do what they don't want to do, rather it would allow them to do exactly what they want to do. Probably makes me a pseudo-libertarian. That position is diametrically opposed to telling a woman what they can and can't do.
    What I really hope is that majority of Republicans, those to the right along with moderates in the party would step forward and reclaim their party. Engage the minority like those pointed out in this blog piece. When I talk to some Republicans about topic above they respond by calling out Obama or some other Democrat position. The non-addressing of the Republican "problem" is how an extremely vulnerable candidate like Obama is going to win. Perfect point here - your post doesn't address what they said, just what I said. Do you agree with Edwards, Grothman, and Walker. Should women be paid differently, should men tell women what to do with in regards to reproduction?

    You have a good point on the use of the word war - it is overused - you hear it in sporting events. I should change it to Rupublican Attacks on Woman RAOW.

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  7. I had no intention of debating with you on this blog. We've discussed this until our heads hurt - there have just been too many times in the past where your responses were filled with partial truths, dismissive, or just downright condescending. Then if none of those tactics worked, you just resorted to "angry rhetoric" saying that just "..how you talk". Of course, it's your blog and you can certainly run it any way you want, but I refuse to get pulled into that sort of aggravation. If you really want to hear my opinion and have a healthy debate, I think would require you to change more than you want to.

    That said, I don't browse these posts for issues to debate on this blog, but I do browse them for a reason...

    In the past I made the claim that you're interested only in discussing your views with those you agree with and not really in having a healthy debate with those you don't agree with. You disagreed with this "observation" of course and since there's no way to logically discuss this with you, I've resorted to browsing these posts to use your own words against you in order to make my case.

    In this example, I was simply trying to show you a case where you were very verbal about legalizing drugs - a topic which you personally have very little to no experience with. Yet, you swiftly dismissed most of my statements - someone who (unfortunately) has a lot of experience with the drugs we were discussing. But just a few months later (to this recent post), you took the position "If you have a dick...you have no idea" when referring to some Republican comments, yet in the same post praised Obama for signing the "Fair Pay Act". I haven't checked, but Obama does have a dick, right?

    So you're clearly picking a philosophy (with regard to who "is" and who "is not" qualified to make policy decisions on certain topics) based on your personal views.

    Still don't believe me? It get's better - look at your counter arguments to these Republican statements. For ex: to Sen. Grothman's comments you replied with "Thank you Senator Caveman." Is that not inflammatory rhetoric? How is anyone that agrees with any of Sen Grothman's comments supposed to feel and/or respond? Your other relies have about the same tone and "thought" put into them.

    As I said - it's your blog, do what you want. Just don't expect intelligent/healthy debates and discussions using the tone, rhetoric and methods you use.

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