Our reporter finally hears from the extremely well-educated Democrat seeking to replace Teddy Kennedy in Daniel Webster’s Senate seat:
4:00PM, recorded call with Martha’s voice. It’s the first I have taken of that type, though my wife is just hanging up on all of them now without listening. (I gently harangued her, a straight-line Dem voter, towards Brown. That debate ended in a draw; after an hour of research, she expressed distaste for both candidates and isn’t voting. I suspect there may be more out there like her, particularly given the weather, which is utterly foul. It’s not a great way to win, but it’s better than losing.)
Martha’s tone on the call was school-marmish — like one would talk to a ten-year-old, or an old person hard of hearing that one didn’t particularly like. Reminds me of my fifth grade teacher who would lecture me about things like “keeping an open mind” and listening better. Said she would vote to protect Social Security and Medicare (as if she could single-handedly stuff paper towels into the long fatal tear in the hull and keep the Titanic and keep it from sinking.)
She also made an odd, cryptic reference to women “taking their daughters to the polls”, then talked about how she would protect “our” interests in Washington. Click. That unlocked what the call was really about — the single, gender-base-galvanizing issue when all else fails: abortion. She has no idea what kind of dark forces she is bargaining with. This may not be a hot one with this audience, but it has become one with me. My views on this have reversed 180 degrees in five years. In short: right to choose WHAT, exactly?
Tellingly, that call was paid for not by Martha’s campaign, but by the DNC. (Didja ever wonder why two things so closely related are called DNC?)
A few minutes later, a short call from an unidentified, recorded woman’s voice saying that turnout has been high overall, but not in our area and to please vote. At the end of the call, I learn it’s from the Brown committee.
Who was it…one of the Marx Brothers, who used to say “Martha…slowly I turned, step by step…” and go into a rage every time he heard the name mentioned?
I’m beginning to feel that way, as well. The woman’s condescension is infuriating.
Here’s hoping voters will inform her that she has no divine right to coronation.
Wasn’t that a Jackie Gleason thing, slowly I turned…..then POW right to the moon!!!
I’ve gotta plead libertarian here: Doctors generally have WAY more schooling than Lawyers. Why the heck should we *allow* @$$-faced lawyers (as politicians are wont to be) to interfere in the PRIVATE relationship between a woman and her doctor?
And doesn’t become the founding argument against the health care bills?
Granted, all life is sacred – “for all are created in God’s image”
But there is no great evil than to interfere with another’s (adult) exercise of free will. You makes your choices, you lives with the consequences.
Actually, Jax, the libertarian argument — as I understand it — is that though the woman has a right to exercise her free will, she does NOT have the right to expect the taxpayers to pay for the decision she makes, if she decides to have an abortion.
People who want freedom need to learn to stand on their own, two feet. And the “progressives” who brim over with such teary compassion for women who want abortions ought to care enough about them to voluntarily fork over their own money to pay for them.
But there is no great evil than to interfere with another’s (adult) exercise of free will. You makes your choices, you lives with the consequences.
You make your choices and an innocent baby dies from the consequences. And even if a person does not believe that a pre-born baby has any rights, over half of the US does, and for sure does not want to pay for another person’s homicidal choices.
Jax: But there is no great evil than to interfere with another’s (adult) exercise of free will. You makes your choices, you lives with the consequences
Some of us would disagree. That is a very specific worldview’s version of evil and I would hesitate to defend it. An evil? okay. No greater evil – not by a long shot by my lights.
Jax Dancer @ 4:
Do they? Physicians often end up doing internships, but that doesn’t mean they end up with more formal schooling than lawyers. In any event, I don’t think either group is better schooled in making moral choices than the other.
All of this is irrelevant; legislators acting on abortion are supposed to be acting on the moral sense of their constituents. There is no reason why the citizenry should let the medical profession’s ethical opinions replace its own.
As for abortion regulations being an intrusion into a private doctor-patient relationship, they are no more so intrusive than laws governing the prescription of medicines are matters like doctor-assisted suicide. Yet somehow the doctor-patient privacy angle doesn’t get brought up much when these issues are discussed. Curious, isn’t it?
Now this is one of the moments that really brings down the GayPatriot experience. Where the f*ck did you come up with that logic? At the bottom of a septic tank?
My brother is fond of the saying that opinion’s are like assholes, and this opinion surely proves him right.
So I take it then, Jax, that to be a lover of liberty, one has to be completely amoral? Because to call anyone’s actions immoral enough to be stopped is automatically evil.
But then from whence comes this notion of “evil”? And how do you make a distinction between adults and non-adults? Sounds like more evil judgmental interference to me.
Perhaps the real question I should ask is why ardent pro-abortion types are such nitwits.
It wasn’t so much a private decision between myself and my doctor..in fact that assjack was luring about how long I had been pregnant turns out so that I would not have been able to have an abortion…no it was a private decision between me …my God…and my conscience…and as far as I know that private decision was in fact protected under the Constitution…it was a decision that I was grateful to have and one that I have never regretted.
Left leaning lesbian,
Your decision to have an abortion was protected by the US Constitution? That a leftie like yourself thinks so is no surprise. If you like a bit of judicial activism (a la Roe v. Wade) then it’s the constitution in action for sure. If you hate something actually in the constitution, well then it must just be ignored. My, how you are tiresome.
The federal constitution says nothing about abortion at all, my dear. If you think me wrong, please quote the exact parts where it does. I’m willing to wait till Venus freezes over for a reply, so you have plenty of time to give the document a thorough going over.
The constitution also says nothing about whether unborn children have rights (that thorough examination I’m sure you’re going to give it will bear this out), however, when the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause was ratified, abortion was a crime in every state. (You’ll have to check the history books for that one. Not something leftists enjoy, I know, but …)
As for as something being just ” a private decision between me …my God…and my conscience,” does that apply to any decision someone might make, or is abortion some sort of special circumstance?
For instance, could a man beat you, or rape you, or murder you (or even all three) and properly claim it as being between himself, his conscience and his God (whatever claiming ownership of God means), or not?
Do tell. And for this my patience is short. So kindly answer quickly or forever hold your peace.
I tire of the endless amorality on display from the pro-abortion crowd. And the fools don’t even realize they’re giving proof positive they position has no moral grounding whatsoever. (Although on the plus side it does affirm my rather low view of human nature.)
If you don’t want to have to make the choice to kill off your unborn child, DON’T HAVE SEX!
Should my opinion really limit your options?
You makes your choices, you lives with the consequences.
* * *
And the distinction between adult free will and minor free will: a child needs the guidance to develop tools allowing him or her to learn the consequences of his or her choices of action.
Jax Dancer @ 11:
No shit, Sherlock. But you completely miss the point: From where comes the moral responsibility to give children guidance?
You made the moral claim that it is wrong to make moral judgments about the actions of adults doing what they want to do. Your moral judgment about the behavior of adults condemns the making of moral judgments about the behavior of adults. So you undermine yourself on morality per se.
Care to explain yourself?