We Got Some Answers

80 thoughts on We Got Some Answers

1. Well, I’d say she’s a typical Republican bitch.

   Bitch as in female dog, or at least, willing to be treated like one…. giving up her rights in order to reap her well-deserved benefits of being a second-class citizen….

2. Well, her analysis of abortion and rape exemptions at least shows a consistency of thought that most pro-lifers lack. You have to give her that.

3. I was about to say, I agree with her entirely on that point. “Except for rape or incest” is a lame way that faux-lifers pat themselves on the back for being compassionate.

   I love her bit about “we’ve been in the workplace for a while now.” Yeah, since there was a workplace. I don’t think your correspondent is actually in the workforce, though.

4. She states she works at a political consulting firm that she shills for when it can make her some extra cash. As we can tell from this comment, money matters.

5. Why is it our responsibility to pay for this? We pay for a million other things for countries all over the world. Maybe they can handle this one thing all on their own.

   … Naaaah. rebutting this would just be too unsporting. Fish in a fucking barrel.

6. Why do women vote for George W. Bush?

   Because some of us are smart.

   “and someone has to cancel them out, so that the real decision is left up to a man.”

7. Apparently this woman lacks a basic understand of human psychology. If she did, she might understand the repurcusions of carrying a rape baby to term, and at least be sympathetic to the ordeal.

   And I knew a lot of great female athletes in high school and I bet they went to college on those accomplishments.

8. There’s nothing new in Karol’s answers. But perhaps there was also nothing new in PLS’s questions. I think that was part of PLS’s point. But let me try some rebuttals.

   Karol’s first answer implies that the US is doing more than its share in foreign aid. This is simply not true, with the percentage of GDP, federal budget, any measure, being a much lower percentage than other countries give and much lower than people like Karol think. Although if she’s a political consultant, she probably knows that it’s maybe one-tenth of the percentages people usually guess.

   Second answer: Yeah, something that can be called life begins at conception, I guess, although eggs and sperm are alive too. I suspect that Karol is using “life” as shorthand for “human life,” and there’s that old argument about balls of cells, implanted embryos, all the way to birth. The mother is a life, too, fully functioning independently of someone’s womb. So are all those young men and women who’ve been killed in Iraq, and all the older people and children, all fully functioning outside the womb, although some pregnant women and their fetuses have been killed too. Not to mention those killed by the death penalty who are both innocent and guilty of the crimes they were charged with. When Karol shows the same regard for independent human life that she does for blastocysts and embryos, maybe we can take her “pro-life” stand seriously.

   The next two answers are essentially unresponsive to the questions. The one on equal pay reflects an unfortunate modern attitude that forgets how hard it’s been even to get into some workplaces, much less that women’s pay is still less than men’s.

   I won’t comment on the last. Lauren’s comment (#4 pretty much sums it up.

9. Donna, I’m a bitch because I have different opinions. How totally feminist.

   Bertson, thanks for the compliment on consistency. Actually, I spent most of my life being wildly pro-choice but the position just became impossible to defend. Um, and I’m very much in the workforce.

   Lauren, can you point to where I’ve said that. I’m a consultant, I don’t work at a firm so I’m not sure where you came up with that. As for working when I need extra money, I always need extra money and so I’m always working. Money absolutely matters to me. I’m an immigrant who spent most of my life poor. I’m not going back to that. Contrary to what most spoiled liberals believe, being poor is not cool or hip or deep.

   Chris, fine, don’t rebut. America shouldn’t have to pay for every little problem with the world but we do anyway.

   Karpad, I don’t even know what that means.

10. define smart.

11. Sorry, my comment about the workplace should’ve been directed at mythago not Bertson.

    CKR, I’ll address your aid comments tomorrow because I’m sleepy but I will say that I’m against the death penalty. Can I be taken seriously now? Thanks.

    Jennifer, I define smart as someone who has their own opinions and questions what they are taught. I grew up in NYC and being a liberal was the default position. It took a lot of reading and thinking to change that.

12. Actually, I’m fairly sure that when Donna said “bitch,” she didn’t mean “someone who I disagree with,” considering that she went ahead and defined exactly what she meant in her post. If I called Karol a bitch, it wouldn’t be because I disagree with her. It would be because I mean to say “some arrogant-assed person, male or female, who thinks that he/she can force me to breed for his/her own goddamn moral comfort.”

    I do like Chris’s comment, though, mainly because I glanced at it too quickly and thought it said “fucking fish in a barrel.” True, that would be more compassionate than shooting the fish…

    I’m still having trouble with the disconnect between the so-called “pro-life” position and the denial of healthcare, which is causing the deaths of thousands of women and babies all over the world. Anyone care to shed some light on this?

    If Karol wants to go back to earning 51 cents on the dollar, more power to her. I, however, don’t care to do that, and if liking the champions of equal pay makes me a retard, so be it. Better to be a fool in heaven than a wise man (or woman) in hell.

    And that’s not even how Title IX works.

13. Contrary to what most spoiled liberals believe, being poor is not cool or hip or deep.

    I find this odd, Karol. Could you expound on this? I guess I’m left wondering if you’d consider me a spoiled liberal.

14. I should leave it alone but..

    Karol: Why is it our responsibility to pay for this? We pay for a million other things for countries all over the world. Maybe they can handle this one thing all on their own.

    Sydney: Do you have a soul? Seriously though as human beings, some of us believe that we have an ethical and moral responsibility to help others. This would include providing funds for reproductive health care and being diligent about world disease epidemics such as AIDS. Besides which, ‘they who cause should cure’ meaning western nations and their desire to colonize and “spread democracy” helped placed many of the countries now labeled as third world into massive financial debt in the first place. So we really should be giving them funds for reproductive health care. By the way, your argument of “we pay for a million other things so why should we pick up the tab on this one” is some cold ass shit. Congrats- that was heartless on a Malkin level.

    Karol: If you’re pro-life, and believe that life begins at conception, what difference does it make how the baby is conceived? It’s still a life. It’s actually very hypocritical of pro-lifers to make this exception. It’s either a life or it isn’t. If it is, the circumstances of conception don’t matter. And, I’ve always wondered, why add ‘incest’ to the ‘rape’ exception? If it’s rape by a family member then just call it rape and if it’s consensual sex between family members, then why should they be included in the abortion exception? Is it just to make the circumstances sound horrible enough to invoke pity?

    Sydney: Nice that you can understand the stupidity in making abortion exceptions for rape and incest. Ridiculous, hubristic, and rather heartless to think that you have a right to tell another woman she must bear the responsibility and consequences of her body’s violation.

    Karol: Forcing schools to support womens’ teams equally to mens’ is absurd. It’s a fact that men play sports more than women. Men are actually getting the short end of this stick because schools have to pay for womens’ sports programs that have barely any participation.

    Sydney: Yes, men play sports more than women. They also drink of the beer and stare at the bosoms. Any other stereotypes you’d like to engage in? Were you ever an athlete? Do you understand the empowerment and the social development that occurs in organized sports? Why would you deny that opportunity to women simply because you (falsely) believe that men play sports more than women? Oh and the purpose of athletics isn’t just to raise money or cater to popularity- a fact you would know if you had any experience with athletics.

    Karol: Key word is ‘mandating’. I hate that liberals treat women like we’re fucking retards. We don’t need a law for every little thing. We’ve been in the workplace for awhile now.

    Sydney: Liberals don’t treat women like we’re fucktards- YOU treat women that way. You’re assuming that the call for equal pay and equal treatment in the workplace is the result of women being too fucking “sensitive” or impatient or some shit. Don’t you think that if women could say, “hey boss, I doing the same job as Billy so I should be paid the same wage” and get paid the same wage, those women would fucking do it? Don’t be naive- we do need a law since apparently the patriarchy isn’t inclined to naturally pay us fair wages. And since when is equal treatment a little thing?

    Karol: Because some of us are smart.

    Sydney: Right…. this makes sense if by smart you mean stupid as all fucking hell.

    Cheers.

15. As a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) male, I’ve been able to do anything and everything possible in this society because of all the double standards and advantages granted to WASP men. And even I see the stupidity of Karol’s argument.

    Sorry…fair play, equality, morals and level playing fields in ALL aspects bring out the best of all races and both sexes. Why would you want anything less?

16. To second Amy’s comment, I have a lot of trouble with the denial of pre-natal care to pregnant women and their babies when coupled with a pro-life moral position. I would also point out that the idea that “life begins at conception” is a matter of FAITH, not science; in fact, “when life begins” has several different answers according to biological science… and women in a secular democracy shouldn’t be forced to conform to an article of someone else’s FAITH.

    Just a word about Title IX. Karol says that “it’s a fact that men play sports more than women.” Really? Because what’s REALLY interesting is that this WAS considered a fact back in 1970, before Title IX was instituted. Then –shockingly! [sarcasm]– when granted the resources and opportunities and the social legitimation to participate, women began playing sports in absolutely astonishing numbers! Now 1 out of every 2.5 high school girls now participates in high school varsity sports (compared to 1 in 27 in 1972). Finally, few schools are actually in full compliance with Title IX. And Amy’s right again: Karol apparently doesn’t understand how Title IX actually works.

17. Karol, your comments are quite impatient. I’d like to understand why women vote for George Bush, so I’d like to dialog a bit more with you.

    On the conceptus question and a lot of other issues, it seems to me that a graded approach makes sense, because we are talking about a conflict between two interests: that of the conceptus and that of the woman. One cannot live (for most of the pregnancy) without the life support that the other provides. It’s also a fact that probably a third of conceptuses don’t make it to embryo or fetus status. They either don’t implant or are rejected. Numbers on this are hard to come by, because if they don’t implant, the woman never knows she’s pregnant. So nature itself (or God, if that’s the way you believe) isn’t very respectful of what you’ve defined as “life.”

    This makes judgements on abortion difficult. I can’t help but think that part of the purpose of the enforced pregnancy advocates is to avoid difficult decisions. Human life entails ethical decisions, though, and avoiding those decisions by a one-size-fits-all morality, it seems to me, is itself unethical.

    And I’ll agree with some of the other commentators: if we are to be concerned about the welfare of blastocysts, why not independently-living women and children everywhere? Or the blastocysts they may produce with men? It’s not enough just to say that conception and the subsequent processes must proceed, the welfare of both parties should be part of a pro-life stand.

18. Karol, the short answer is, “If you didn’t get it, then my case is proven”

    and to clarify Donna’s statement, you aren’t a bitch for disagreeing with her. I’m sure it’s entirely coincidental.

19. This comment bothered me the most:

    Key word is ‘mandating’. I hate that liberals treat women like we’re fucking retards. We don’t need a law for every little thing. We’ve been in the workplace for awhile now.

    Those of us who want equal pay laws are simply noting that something is unfair, and that the people who are leveling the unfairness should be responsible for fixing it. This only makes sense, and it’s what government is for. If somebody breaks into your house and steals your TV, you don’t just shrug and say, “Well, it’s my fault for buying the damn thing to begin with.”

    I agree that we don’t need a law for every little thing. The problem of equal pay for equal work is not a “little thing.” It’s the foundation of our economic system. If women can’t compete on a financial level because companies are stacking the cards, we need to mandate equal pay.

    This is, I think, primarily a class issue that is related to race and gender and sexual orientation. Everybody should support equal pay for equal work, regardless of who the victim is. I don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t.

    It comes down to the bootstraps argument. Conservatives (well, some of them; others are perfectly content to simultaneously condemn and adopt victimhood status) believe that anybody can get anything they want if they only try hard enough. Liberals believe that “victim” isn’t a bad word, that for some people in some situations, there are obstacles that are insurmountable without the help of more powerful individuals. I think reality bears the liberal position out.

20. Apparently this woman lacks a basic understand of human psychology. If she did, she might understand the repurcusions of carrying a rape baby to term, and at least be sympathetic to the ordeal.

    Lauren, I’m sympathetic. That was nothing to do with whether or not what she has inside her is a life.

    If I called Karol a bitch, it wouldn’t be because I disagree with her. It would be because I mean to say “some arrogant-assed person, male or female, who thinks that he/she can force me to breed for his/her own goddamn moral comfort.”

    I guess I should have said all this before but, basically, I am pro-life however abortion doesn’t even rank in my top 5 issues. Like I said, I grew up in a very liberal culture. .The personal is political!’ my teachers all raged. Well, I agree with that. The personal is political. And, personally, I’m not going to have an abortions so why should it be one of my issues? So, no, I’m not going to ‘force’ you to breed but yes, you are destroying a life. If you can live with that, that’s your ‘choice’. As for Donna’s comment about me, she called me a dog. I mean, whatever, it doesn’t bother me but you should all see that that’s what feminism has become. You call other women names because they dare disagree with you. It’s ugly.

    I, however, don’t care to do that, and if liking the champions of equal pay makes me a retard, so be it.

    Two men go start new jobs. One negotiates his pay and gets himself an extra week vacation. The other accepts the package straight off. Is discrimination at play? Women tend to be appeasers, and are less likely to negotiate for what they want. Blaming men for this fact only makes us look like weak little girls who can’t take care of themselves. Also, another fact is that women drop out of the workforce to get married and have babies. Of course the average pay of women is going to be lower than men. We’re not in the workforce long enough to change that.

    And that’s not even how Title IX works.

    Title IX demands that women be represented in sports programs (among other things but lets stick to the sports one here) to the extent they’re represented at a school. That’s absurd. If a school is 50/50, women must make up 50% of the sports teams, even if there is a much greater interest in sports by the men in the school. It’s more than a little ridiculous. Why not let things develop organically? Why force a situtation that is so unnatural?

    I find this odd, Karol. Could you expound on this? I guess I’m left wondering if you’d consider me a spoiled liberal.

    Ryan, I can’t tell you if you are a spoiled liberal. My best friend is a huge liberal and she loves and understands the deep value of money in the same way that I do. It’s because we both grew up dirt poor and neither of us is ever going to romanticize that. I have family that escaped the USSR years before my parents did because they had money. I see the freedom and opportunity that money presents. The aforementioned friend has actually had people say to her ‘you’re so lucky you grew up poor’, as if that somehow authenticates her life experience. It’s ridiculous. So many liberals think it’s cool to be poor. Look at the comments above about me liking money. That’s right, I do. And the trustfund hipsters I see in NY that think it’s cool to live in the ghetto and pontificate on the culture of poverty are more than a little annoying. As GNR once said ‘it’s easy to be hungry when you ain’t got shit to lose’.

    Do you have a soul?

    No, Sydney, I don’t. I’m walking around soulless because I believe that money is a finite thing and we should spent it wisely. Cold-hearted? Fine, I’m cold-hearted because I’m realistic about the fact that the US can’t possibly pay for everything for everyone and we have to make choices. I don’t see how ‘reproductive health care around the world’ should be a priority. Again, if you can’t have an argument with calling the other person names, telling them they have no soul, or calling them ‘stupid as all fucking hell’, I’m not sure this discussion is for you. You’re not going to hurt my feelings and you’re obviously not going to change my mind with your attacks. Yes, men play sports more than women. They also drink of the beer and stare at the bosoms. Any other stereotypes you’d like to engage in. I don’t understand. Are you actually disputing that men play sports or drink beer or stare at bosoms more than women? It might be a ‘stereotype’ but it doesn’t make it any less true.

    And even I see the stupidity of Karol’s argument.

    Wow, Jim, even you see the stupidity? You? A man? A white man!? You’ve been taught well, what can I say.

    To second Amy’s comment, I have a lot of trouble with the denial of pre-natal care to pregnant women and their babies when coupled with a pro-life moral position. I would also point out that the idea that “life begins at conception” is a matter of FAITH, not science; in fact, “when life begins” has several different answers according to biological science… and women in a secular democracy shouldn’t be forced to conform to an article of someone else’s FAITH.

    Maggie, I’m not religious at all, whatsoever. It has nothing to do with faith for me. Like I said, I was not just pro-choice but militantly so for most of my life. I saw pro-lifers as the dumbest people alive. And the more I’d argue with them, the more reasonable they sounded while I repeated the dumb ‘it’s my body! It’s my choice!’ mantra over and over as if that was an actual argument.

    CKR, I don’t know what you mean by my comments are impatient. It’s true that I wrote those answers in like 2 minutes before heading out the door so maybe they do sound rushed. But, hey, I’m here and I’m not calling anyone names for daring to disagree with me. Dialogue away! Yes, people will argue about when life begins but actually the abortion argument tends to come down to whether the woman wants the baby or not. If she does she says ‘I’m having a baby!’ even a few days after becoming pregnant. If she doesn’t, it becomes nothing more than a clump of cells. That’s not understandable to me. It either is or it isn’t.

    Karpad, yes, I’m a bitch, terrific, I get it. Very brilliant argument.

21. Again, if you can’t have an argument with calling the other person names, telling them they have no soul, or calling them ’stupid as all fucking hell’, I’m not sure this discussion is for you.

    My response to Sydney should obviously say ‘if you can’t have an argument without calling… ‘

22. Oh damn, one more addition.Maggie writes: I have a lot of trouble with the denial of pre-natal care to pregnant women and their babies when coupled with a pro-life moral position..

    I’m clearly not saying that we should ‘deny’ pre-natal care to pregnant women, I just don’t see why I (or we) have to pay for it.

23. Women’s issues were not at the fore of last years election, national security/war on terror was. A friend of mine who said that she would get an abortion if she ever got pregnant and is not terribly anti-gay voted for Bush because she thought he was a better war president than Kerry. Abortion and equal pay came up in the debates a little; Title IX and international aid were mentioned seldom, if at all, and the Supreme Court wasn’t on the table.
    A little OT, but I think it’s relevant because it’s about abortion as a political question: Here are two articles by William Saletan who explains how George Bush and Bill Frist have not really made a coherent policy statement on abortion (http://slate.msn.com/id/2122012 and http://slate.msn.com/id/2123958).

24. Karol, totally off-topic and marginally interesting fact: I grew up around the corner from Axl Rose.

    And the trustfund hipsters I see in NY that think it’s cool to live in the ghetto and pontificate on the culture of poverty are more than a little annoying.

    I find it annoying, too. They don’t speak for me or any other truly politically invested person I know.

25. Two men go start new jobs. One negotiates his pay and gets himself an extra week vacation. The other accepts the package straight off. Is discrimination at play?

    As a poor negotiator, I do not approve of a system that rewards negotiation skills in areas that do not otherwise involve them. If you’re hiring a negotiator, it makes sense, but if you’re hiring a dish washer, paying the better negotiator more isn’t much different than paying the better looking more.

26. An ideologue is an ideologue, whether “left” or “right.”

    There are people who can’t see outside of their narrow ideologies on both sides in equal proportions.

    To Karol:

    Would you entertain–at least as an intellectual exercise–the idea that your views, if implemented nationally, might reinforce privilege for men, restrict women’s rights, and maintain the status quo of inqeuality?

    To Karol’s detractors:

    Would you entertain–at least as an intellectual exercise–the idea that there might be truth in personal responsibility, allowing things to develop “organically” (e.g. big government policy can’t change a culture), and the other points that Karol makes?

    ***

    So often, and regardless of specific word choices, these arguments involve more anger than they do discourse.

    It does no good to call Karol a bitch.
    It does no good to decry “[those] feminists.”

    Come on, people. Listen past your prejudices. You’re fighting battles with phantoms.

27. I am having trouble thinking of polite responses to someone who implies that I am an idiot for not voting the way she did. If she’d simply laid out her reasons, then said, and that’s the basis of my own personal decision, I’d disagree with her reasons, but wouldn’t be angry with her.

    But the response was framed instead as those of you who disagree with me do so because you’re not as smart as I am.

    So even if most of her position is in fact based on carefully reasoned, logical assessment, the end result is not conducive to further learn-from-each other discussion. The end result is an insult.

    That other people subsequently responded with insults of their own may be regretable, but it shouldn’t be unexpected or unreasonable.

    Karol, why are you bothering to argue with the people here, anyway? You’ve already suggested that we’re not as smart as you, so why does what we think even matter? Why bother defending yourself to us, if it’s likely that we’re not able to fully understand the wisdom of your choices, no matter how clearly you explain them?

    It’s not great that other people here have resorted to insults, but, then, they didn’t start with them — you did.

28. Chris, fine, don’t rebut. America shouldn’t have to pay for every little problem with the world but we do anyway.

    OK fine, drag me into it.

    America is founded on theft. Theft of land, theft of resources. The vast majority of poor people in the world are as poor as they are because of colonialism, past and/or present. The US is by no means the only culprit, but we are pretty much the only one still in business.

    Do you wear shirts or skirts or shoes sewn in China, Central America, or Saipan? Do you drive a vehicle, or in any way use or benefit from the use of petroleum? Do you have a cell phone? You owe those poor people restitution. You’ve benefited from a system that takes resources from poor countries and sends them to rich countries, and that system is bolstered by the armies of our client states.

    And no, that’s not your fault just for living in the USA. But when you start defending the worst of the people who would maintain and expand that system, the blood that’s on your hands becomes your problem. And complaining over the pittance that it would take to provide some of the women you are helping to rip off with access to even remotely adequate health care does not speak well for your character.

29. Oh, and everyone – though I know this will elicit the predictable “PC” groans from the reflexive anti-politeness crowd – could we lay off, once and for all, with using “retard” as an insult? It’s an offensive, outdated term for disabled people who not only have likely done you no harm whatsoever, but who are also, in the main, much better company than Bush loyalists and don’t deserve the insult by comparison.

30. (Clarification: I know Karol was the one who used the word “retard” in this thread. This has been bugging me for a while in general. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.)

31. Man, I wish I had come in on this thread earlier in the week. What a great tussle. Alas.

    Chris-

    I’d love to respond to your ridiculous, Marxist-lite “trade is theft” tirade, but as a wise man once said:

    … Naaaah. rebutting this would just be too unsporting. Fish in a fucking barrel.

    I will, however, take issue with your “pro-politeness” nitpick. You wrote:

    Oh, and everyone – though I know this will elicit the predictable “PC” groans from the reflexive anti-politeness crowd – could we lay off, once and for all, with using “retard” as an insult?

    Karol, of course, didn’t refer to anyone in particular as a retard, but merely referenced the word to describe the way she feels identity-politics liberals treat women in the workforce. And you must get your chutzpah in bulk to, in one sentence, decry the use of the word retard, and then tar “Bush loyalists” as worse company than the disabled people you’re defending. Anti-politeness, indeed.

32. Karol: You say life begins at conception. If you’ve taken any biology not taught by a creationist, you probably know that life began in the Precambrian and since that time all life has come from other life. So I assume you mean that human life begins at conception. Can you give a self-consistent definition of “human life” that fills all the following criteria:
    1. includes all entities formed by the fusion of a sperm and egg, from single cell to adult human
    2. defines mono-zygotic twins as two people, despite the fact that they were formed from a single sperm/egg fusion
    3. excludes brain dead people (or gives an alternate definition of death)
    4. excludes gestational trophoblastic disease, a condition in which something goes badly wrong in the fertilized egg and it turns into a cancer instead of developing normally into a baby–bonus points if you can sort out what to do in the case where GTD co-exists with an embryo
    5. excludes cancer, including teratomas, which form mesenchym, endoderm, and ectoderm and can even form mature structures such as teeth and hair
    6. excludes or includes non-human animals that pass the rouge test
    7. isn’t based on simple prejudice.
    8. bonus points if you can include or exclude clones formed from somatic cells of embryos or adults as human.

    I’ve asked other pro-lifers to give me such a definition in the past and they’ve always failed. Pity, because an adequate, consistent definition of human life that included embryos and excluded the obviously non-human I’d probably be convinced of the pro-life argument.

33. Kate, it always bugs me that womens’ issues have been reduced to either sex or babies. It’s always abortion, child daycare, pre-natal care. I wrote out my top 5 issues before the election and no one would ever know I was a woman by looking at my list (you can see the list here but prepared to be horrified. I should also add that since Bush has made zero progress on vouchers. The truth is that abortion policy is unlikely to change anytime in the near future. My position on the legality of abortion is that Roe v. Wade should be overturned because it is a poor decision and that abortion laws should be left to the states. If NY wants abortion but Mississippi does not, they should be free to choose for themselves. I’m big on the rights of states. Our founders didn’t make us a Republic by accident.

    Lauren, that’s awesome. I’m a big fan. I had another lyric in mind, by the band Pulp, to describe my feelings on people who glamorize poverty: ‘you think that poor is cool’ from the song ‘Common People’ but felt the GNR line was more descriptive.

    Kyle, I’m not a great negotiator either but you know, that’s life. The one time I’ve ever negotiated my pay I had to write everything down and I was shaking as I made my demands. But that’s business. I don’t like the government making laws for every little thing and I come from a Communist country where everyone, the garbageman to the doctor, got paid the same and, well, it really sucked.

    Josh, thanks for that. It’s true that I felt on the defensive with that sentence. I’ve always considered myself a feminist, and I still do, but it seems like the movement of feminism has chosen to be something I can’t abide. I don’t want men to take care of me and make laws for me and make me feel better about myself by throwing money at programs that are supposed to help me.

    Rana, the implication of the question of why any woman would vote for Bush is that those that do are idiots. It seemed like the right response to state that I voted for Bush because I’m smart. So, no, I didn’t ‘start’ anything, much less personal name-calling. As for why I’m arguing here: I saw Lauren’s comments on my friend Dawn Eden’s site and though I disagreed with what she was writing she was at least writing in full sentences and without obscenities. I clicked the link to her site and saw the Bush questions and the fact that no one had commented. It’s easy to be in an echo chamber in the blogosphere and I just wanted to challenge some ideas obviously held by people reading this site. I’m lucky, my readers are all over the ideological map. I have conservatives who hate Bush and liberals who voted for him. I have Europeans who despise America and Israel and Europeans who are the lone conservatives at their school. I’ve got self-described RINOs and complete left-wingers. A lot of my commenters are just middle of the road Americans living in the heartland. I get challenged by them all the time. That same sort of challenging didn’t seem to be happening here. Then Lauren posted my answers so I figured I would respond to comments.

    Chris, you have no idea how amazing America is and how much good we do in the world. It’s too bad. My advice would be to travel more and see the world as it actually is and see how people actually live. See how people beg for ‘sweatshops’ to come to their cities. See them make a penny a day and wait in line for a week to get a ‘sweatshop’ job paying 30 cents. You owe those poor people restitution. You’ve benefited from a system that takes resources from poor countries and sends them to rich countries, and that system is bolstered by the armies of our client states. Um, the restitution is called payment for my shoes, skirt and cell phone. I pay with American dollars. That’s my restitution. Otherwise, I don’t owe anybody anything. As for the use of the word ‘retard’, I wasn’t using it as an insult (well, except for sticking ‘fucking’ before the word which is neither here nor there), I was actually saying that I don’t like when women are treated as mentally retarded.

34. Thanks Shankar. Are you in NYC?

    Dianne, you’re making the wrong argument. You’re so used to arguing with people that are pro-life because they are religious that you don’t know what to say to me because I’m not. Nice dig on creationists but again, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

35. Damn, you have the best comment proofer in the world and I still make mistakes. Forget the line ‘ I should also add that since Bush has made zero progress on vouchers.’ in my sentence about my top issues. I was going to get into this whole other thing about how Bush hasn’t done anything on vouchers and so I’m surrendering the fantasy that he will but then felt that there were already too many topics being covered here. So, disregard that line and pretend I closed the parentheses after the word ‘horrified’.

36. Karol, the argument is over as far as I’m concerned. I don’t understand your position and never will. That you don’t understand mine or others is a given as well.

    I believe, however, that you are a pessimist. One who does not see the benefits of equality (in pay, life choices, you pick the area) that could be afforded to both genders. But what makes many who do believe in those benefits hostile to you is your choice to pass that pessimism on to others.

    So sorry.

37. Karol: So, what’s your definition of life or human life? I’ll retract the nasty remark about creationists, if it bothers you. I’m pretty sure creationists don’t believe in spontaneous generation these days anyway. So, back to the main point: How do you come to the conclusion that life begins at conception? You’ve stated that it is not a religious claim, so it’s clearly not by revealed knowledge. Therefore, you must have some logical or evidence based argument for your definition. May we hear it?

38. Chris, you have no idea how amazing America is and how much good we do in the world. It’s too bad.

    You have no idea how much I know. How weak is your point of view that it has to be based on assuming others’ ignorance?

    Um, the restitution is called payment for my shoes, skirt and cell phone. I pay with American dollars.

    “Um, the restitution I give my slaves is food and shelter.”

    As for the use of the word ‘retard’, I wasn’t using it as an insult (well, except for sticking ‘fucking’ before the word which is neither here nor there), I was actually saying that I don’t like when women are treated as mentally retarded.

    Thus proving that the point flew far over your head.

39. Well, Karol, thank you for the response.

    I will agree to disagree with you, because I do not share the underlying philosophical assumptions that support your positions, and because, even if I did, I do not believe that Bush is an effective agent for carrying policies that support them. The man is simply not competent to run a major world power, ideology aside.

    I would add, just as a small piece of advice that you are free to ignore, that it’s rhetorically more effective to not proclaim one’s inclusiveness as a way of justifying one’s position. If you are genuinely open to a range of perspectives, it will come across clearly in your argument, tone, etc. Making a point of it just sounds defensive.

    I don’t know. Something about your tone continues to bug me — maybe some small degree of smugness perhaps? — but I’d be open to the idea that it has more to do with me than with you.

    Anyway, you’re free to think and speak as you will. Let’s leave it at that; I’m not all that interested in further discussion.

40. But what makes many who do believe in those benefits hostile to you is your choice to pass that pessimism on to others.

    Exactly. It’s not because Karol has a “difference of opinion.”

41. Kyle, I’m not a great negotiator either but you know, that’s life.

    I’m pleased that I don’t completely share your resignation in the face of adversity.

    But that’s business.

    That’s business only as long as we allow it to be. Fortunately, businesses can be regulated. The way we live didn’t fall from the sky; we wrote it down. Once in a while, we edit it. More to the point, the world is what we make it, our government is what we make it, and businesses are what we make them. There’s no other reason for unfairness in our world besides “we want it that way.”

    I don’t like the government making laws for every little thing …

    You’re entitled to that, certainly.

42. Jim, I totally understand your position. I just don’t agree with it. I have many liberal friends who I respect and adore. You could not be more wrong about my being a pessimist. I don’t know what I said that is pessimistic but, whatever, if the argument is over as far as you’re concerned, it’s over.

    Dianne, there are books worth of evidence as to when life begins and I don’t think I can do justice to it here. Why the focus on abortion, anyway? As I’ve written, it’s not a priority issue for me.

    Chris, I felt that your comments betrayed your ignorance and I don’t mean that as an insult but actually as the definition of ignorance would imply- that you don’t know better. It’s the only explanation for people who think like you do about America. I am grateful every day for being here, I know what the rest of the world is like. I’ve lived in other countries and have done a lot of traveling. I’ve been to places that you think America hurts and you could not be more wrong.

    Rana, what can I tell you? You don’t like my tone, what can I do? Maybe I am smug, who know? I know that I’m pretty confident in my opinions, maybe that comes through. I think more likely is that you disagree with me so passionately that it makes you despise me and everything I say. I just can’t get that worked up over disagreement.

    Anne, where is my hostility? And, where is my pessimism? I disagree with your positions. You shouldn’t take it so personally.

    Ok, well, it looks like you guys want this to end so I’ll go now.

43. “there are books worth of evidence as to when life begins and I don’t think I can do justice to it here.”

    Summarize. Or recommend a book. Because right now it looks like you’re trying to avoid the question. I’ll admit that I think it is an unanswerable question, but then again, I think the strict pro-life viewpoint is inconsistent. I’ll agree that third trimester abortion should only be undertaken under extreme circumstances (who goes through 6 months of pregnancy and then suddenly wants an abortion anyway?), but I don’t see any remotely reasonable way to call a fertilized egg a person. Incidently, what part of the fertilization process makes it human anyway? The fusion of the sperm and the egg membranes? The changes in the egg membrane that make it impermeable to other sperm? The injection of the sperm DNA into the egg’s cytoplasm? The fusion of the pronuclei? Do you have any idea what I’m babbling about here?

44. “it looks like you guys want this to end”

    I don’t see that. It looks to me like us “guys” are having a fine time and willing to continue the argument if you are. I certainly am. Perhaps you mean “I’m bored with this discussion” or even “You’re getting the better of me so I’m going to declare victory and run away” perhaps?

45. Apparently this woman lacks a basic understand of human psychology. If she did, she might understand the repurcusions of carrying a rape baby to term, and at least be sympathetic to the ordeal.
    Lauren, I’m sympathetic. That was nothing to do with whether or not what she has inside her is a life.

    It does have to do with whether you care that the impact of carrying her rapist’s baby to term has an effect on her life.

    If we have no responsibility to assist famine-stricken children in Africa (more than thirty million at last count), why should a woman feel any responsibility to continue a pregnancy? She’s probably going to have other children, and I’m sure she pays taxes and contributes at the office to help still others.

46. I agree with Josh that often times these things devolve into anger rather than conversation. In the spirit of the latter, I want to seriously consider his (well-put) question: “Would you entertain–at least as an intellectual exercise–the idea that there might be truth in personal responsibility, allowing things to develop “organically” (e.g. big government policy can’t change a culture), and the other points that Karol makes?”

    I would consider it. However, I would ask “the other side” to consider this: many times “letting things develop organically” ends up serving the interests of the status quo. I.e., it’s an argument most often made by those in power, and/or those presently benefitting from the current system. Martin Luther King Jr, for example, critiqued this line of thinking in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” (and I paraphrase): “White people keep telling us to wait, ‘just wait and things will get better.’ What they fail to see is that we’ve been waiting for hundreds of years!”

    My point is this: I agree that government intervention isn’t necessarily the solution to every problem. But in situations where a system of oppression or domination is in place, systematically disenfranchising a significant portion of the populace, then government intervention is often the ONLY solution whereby change doesn’t require generations. The dramatic results from the implementation of Title IX (which I describe above, and which Karol –not surprisingly– ignored) are a case in point.

47. Dianne when several people tell me they consider the discussion over, I assume it’s over. I’m not bored nor am I running (I am working, though, so will have to come back to your more complex life comments. You can declare victory in the meantime if that’s what this is all about).

    Piny, wow, tell me where I said I don’t want to help famine stricken children. My whole point is that I DO want to help famine stricken children and paying for the pre-natal healthcare and, let’s face it, abortions of all the world’s women will take money away from better goals like helping those children.

48. (which I describe above, and which Karol –not surprisingly– ignored)

    Maggie, there’s only one of me and a whole bunch of you. I’ll be back to try to respond to everything.

49. “I am working, though”

    So am I. Specifically, I am trying to finish writing my least favorite section in a grant application. Which is probably why I’m currently in a mood such that describing me as “bitchy” would be a grave insult to female dogs everywhere.

50. >>Chris, you have no idea how amazing America is and how much good we do in the world. It’s too bad.>>

    We do less good relative to GNP than virtually every other first-world nation: .21%. America spent roughly three-six dollars last year per person in sub-Saharan Africa. That’s right: America bought every man, woman, and child in sub-Saharan Africa a sandwich with dill pickle. No chips.

    HIV rates at or above thirty percent. People dying and suffering from problems we cured over a century ago, like fistula and dystentery. And that’s what we contribute.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run to Starbucks. I think this is a two-caramel-latte day.

51. You said that we shouldn’t feel obligated to help, to “pick up the tab,” remember? That we don’t have any moral duty to care. That was your point. Maybe you misspoke, and didn’t mean to communicate that you, personally, don’t want to help. But nothing you said was about providing services apart from reproductive-health services.

52. I felt that your comments betrayed your ignorance and I don’t mean that as an insult but actually as the definition of ignorance would imply- that you don’t know better. It’s the only explanation for people who think like you do about America.

    The only explanation? That’s so off the wall it’s gotta be true. Since 9/11, I mean.

    I wonder whether my ignorance stems from a lifetime of reading of American and world history, my job that requires me to read news sources – conservative, liberal, and left – from around the world, or working with some of the many victims of US foreign policy I’ve been privileged to meet over my lifetime. Or maybe it was my childhood teachers, most of them refugees from the 1956 abortive revolution in Hungary. yeah, it must be those guys: who better to unfairly sour me on the US than people who narrowly escaped Soviet diicatorship with their lives?

    It’s true I do gloss over some of the wonderful things the US has done for the rest of the world. Take 1954, for instance, when the US generously toppled the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, kicking off forty years of genocidal CIA-funded civil war: if we hadn’t done that, we might have had to pay ten percent more for bananas! All those poor United Fruit executives would have had to fire their domestic help paid in US dollars!

    Or take September 11th … 1973! Why, Pinochet was a godsend sent by the US to the people of Chile, who until 9/11/73 suffered greatly under Salvador Allende’s horribly democratic administration! Or 1953, when we deposed Mossadegh in Iran and installed the Shah! Mossadegh would have evilly shared Iranian oil revenues with the poorest Persians, which clearly had to be stopped. And by installing the Shah we also had the side benefit of SAVAK, which perfected law enforcement techniques we’ve been able to put to good use in places like Abu Ghraib!

    Clearly I’ve been utterly unfair to the US. Why, the birth defects from Agent Orange use in Vietnam alone have prompted the development of innovative new physical therapy methods. It’s just like NASA and Tang, only more prevalent!

    I’m just sorry I made the career choice I did. If I was a political consultant for the Republicans, I could have had the chance to meet, up close and personal, with people from around the world. I could have asked them whether they think America has been good to the rest of the world. I’m sure they’d answer me honestly while they made my bed and handed me my margarita. Their tip would depend on it!

53. It’s true I do gloss over some of the wonderful things the US has done for the rest of the world. Take 1954, for instance, when the US generously toppled the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz, kicking off forty years of genocidal CIA-funded civil war: if we hadn’t done that, we might have had to pay ten percent more for bananas! All those poor United Fruit executives would have had to fire their domestic help paid in US dollars!

    Oh, now you’re just being a big meanie.

54. Rana, what can I tell you? You don’t like my tone, what can I do? Maybe I am smug, who know? I know that I’m pretty confident in my opinions, maybe that comes through. I think more likely is that you disagree with me so passionately that it makes you despise me and everything I say. I just can’t get that worked up over disagreement.

    Actually, I don’t disagree with you “so passionately” nor do I “despise [you] and everything [you] say.” I do agree with you that personal responsibility is a good thing, for example, and also that reasoned debate among people with different perspectives is also a good thing.

    And it’s not your confidence that bothers me. I like seeing women be confident and willing to argue forcefully for their positions.

    However.

    There is, as I said, a whiff of smugness about your posts. The impression I get from your comments — and by all means correct me if I’m wrong — is that you’ve found a way in the world that works for you, and that because it works for you, that’s sufficient. Now, that may well be true. I’m certainly not going to stand in your way of doing your thing, thinking your thoughts, voting as you will.

    The problem, though, is that — as you yourself suggested in your response to Sydney — is that this seems to be manifesting in a selfish form of “I got mine, so why should I care about anyone else?” Pride in one’s accomplishments is one thing; gloating over it is another. It is a cruel position to take when many of the world’s people _can’t_ “get theirs,” no matter how long, hard, or smart they work. It is also a naive one, in a world in which privilege and opportunity are _not_ distributed equally. Hard work, while admirable, is far from a guarantee of success. That you found a way to succeed does not mean that those pathways are available to everyone, including those who do all the right things.

    You speak about “spoiled liberals” not getting it when it comes to poverty, about speaking with condescension towards the poor. Are you not doing the same? You talk in one breath about how hard you work, then, in the next, pat yourself on the back for paying for your shoes as if this were some noble endeavor. It’s not.

    You claim to “have sympathy” for women who find themselves pregnant as a result of violence, but then basically shrug and say that it’s not your problem and that issues like this are of little interest to you.

    (To be honest, I have trouble figuring out why you bother voting at all. There doesn’t seem to be much that you are positively _for_ in Bush’s policies; it’s more that he doesn’t endorse things you seem to think are irrelevant to you.)

    You also pat yourself on the back for having a diverse readership, for having liberal friends, for being willing to converse with people from a wide range of backgrounds. Well, huzzah! for you. This is something one is supposed to do anyway, not because it’s going to get you some sort of prize.

    The impression I get, reading your comments, is that you are self-oriented first and foremost, and that you are proud to be this way.

    I don’t despise you for that. I pity you.

55. Anne, where is my hostility? And, where is my pessimism? I disagree with your positions. You shouldn’t take it so personally.

    Gosh, sorry. It’s just that when people think that if I’m raped, the government should force me to continue the pregnancy, I get kind of tetchy.

56. (That is, a pregnancy resulting from said hypothetical rape.)

57. I’ve been fascinated by this discussion, which began with a very short piece I posted on the blog I share with two other women. I hope you’ll all check it out and see what we do on lots of hot issues. We’d love to have a conversation on a whole bunch of topics.

58. “Why do women vote for George W. Bush?

    “Because some of us are smart.”

    Key word there being “some.” Women vote for Bush because only some of us are smart enough not to.

    Notice the contradictory logic? The government is free from obligation to support someone else, but women are not? America should should not have to support worldwide reproductive healthcare, but women should be forced to support a fetus they had no say in conceiving? This while handing out money is no sweat for America–balancing the budget is like a nonentity as far as priorities go, and look how much they’ve sunk into the war–but pregnancy is difficult, life-changing, draining, restricting, uncomfortable, and on occasion painful, and often emotionally disastrous for someone who’s been raped–this heartless & selfish Republican Marquess de Sade wants to spare the country the nonexistant inconvenience of a few million to third world people who don’t have basic health care, yet put thousands of women through great physical and emotional pain and inconvenience over something they are powerless to prevent.

    You know what, though? I don’t support the rape/incest exception either. You see, for an exception to exist there needs to be a rule to be excepted from. EVERYONE who does not want to be pregnant deserves the opportunity to have that pregnancy terminated–not to mention every opportunity to prevent unwanted pregnancy in the first place. And I’ve got news for Miss I-don’t-want-these-rights-so-no-one-should-have-them: If Roe v. Wade gets overturned she’ll get her wish: there won’t be an exception, for exactly that reason. Women who want abortions will still obtain them, whether they’ve been raped or had incest or not. It will be inconvenient and scary and dangerous, and it will be wrong because those women won’t deserve that inconvenience, fear, and danger, and it will be right because they will still be getting rid of unwanted pregnancies. It will be wrong because some of them will be unable to obtain abortions, and it will be wrong because some of them will die. And it will be ironic because this woman and other sick, hateful people like her will celebrate their deaths without bothering to care that for every woman dead of a botched abortion the fetus they’re allegedly so concerned about will be just as dead.

    And in conclusion, I really, truly hope that the next time this woman walks outside she has an encounter with an incontinent and well-fed seagull.

59. Karol – ha this is really late, you will probably never read this, but I agree with you that abortion/sex are not the only woman’s issue. (The friend that I mentioned – abortion and gay rights are the only political issues that I know her positions on and she happened to be much to the left of GWB though she voted for him last year.) Iraq, the economy, etc. in my opinion are women’s issues because they are all people’s issues. But it was Title IX, equal wages, abortion and birth control that were mentioned in the original post, so that’s why I addressed them.

60. We need workplace pay-equality laws because the people with power are not inclined toward fairness. They are inclined toward making themselves and their companies more money. They are inclined toward paying their employees as little as they can get away with, and due to the still-patriarchal culture we’re in and the biases of yesteryear they’ve yet to shed, they can get away with paying women less than they pay men.

    I am not familiar with Title IX in regards to equal spending, but it also provides for the important issue of equal access. Before Title IX it was perfectly legal to only allow men to use sporting equipment and fields, courts, etc. It was legal to allow men to use superior equipment, or on a much more convenient schedule. It was legal to pay for unnecessary luxuries for men’s athletics instead of the basics for women’s. Without Title IX, my university could ban me from their weight room, forcing me to pay for a gym membership elsewhere while any and every man on campus got a more convenient equivalent free. And ALL of this was wrong. I pay the same tuition and fees as any guy there, except of course the ones who got giant bloated football scholarships. Why should I not get an equal share of what my money pays an equal part of?

    By the way, men play more sports because our culture unfairly encourages them and discourages us.

61. Oh, now you’re just being a big meanie.

    (shamfaced) You’re right, of course, piny. Especially compared to this great big beautiful country of ours. Why, I haven’t even endowed a single scholaarship to The School of The Americas!

62. Look, a job is a job. It’s gotta be better than working in a sweatshop, right?

63. Oh, OK, I get what you were saying.

    Knowing some of the GOPers I’ve known, I think I’d rather work in a sweatshop than do their laundry and dusting.

    But I in no way intended to criticize people doing domestic labor. Far from it!

64. Karol, you are allowed to have what you feel are the most important. It’s wrong to imply that all women should have these be priorties. But you talk we we addressed abortion et cetera. Short answer: we’re feminists. That IS our important issues.

    And, about vochers: do you honestly think that private schools won’t charge MORE than the vouchers if the policy was implemented? Vouchers would just aggrevate the class divide.

65. Knowing some of the GOPers I’ve known, I think I’d rather work in a sweatshop than do their laundry and dusting.

    Yeah, bloodstains are impossible to get out.

66. This has been an interesting thread. But I’m gonna get nitpicky here for a minute because I’m sick of seeing all these misunderstandings about Title IX. Karol writes,

    Title IX demands that women be represented in sports programs (among other things but lets stick to the sports one here) to the extent they’re represented at a school. That’s absurd. If a school is 50/50, women must make up 50% of the sports teams, even if there is a much greater interest in sports by the men in the school. It’s more than a little ridiculous. Why not let things develop organically? Why force a situtation that is so unnatural?

    This isn’t an accurate description at all. Title IX has three facets: participation, scholarships, and other benefits. It doesn’t require that women make up 50 percent of the athletic student body; it simply says that, ideally, opportunities for women in sports should be equal to that of men (assuming that the populations of women and men in a given school are about equal). The scholarship rule says that athletic scholarship dollars should be given proportionally to the participation levels of each gender — not that they should be given 50-50 (they certainly aren’t). The “other benefits” aspect says that things like coaching and facilities should also be proportional.

    Now, what most people complain about in regards to Title IX is the participation rule, but it’s disgustingly easy to comply with. Schools have three different ways to comply:
    1. The ratio of female athletes should be equal to the ratio of female students
    2. If that doesn’t happen, they only have to show that they are attempting to institute more programs for the underrepresented gender
    3. And if they can’t show that, then all they have to do is demonstrate that they have accomodated the skills and interests of both genders.

    So the fact is, if women or men at a particular school aren’t interested in playing sports, the school isn’t required to make the athletic programs 50-50. And no school has ever been penalized for Title IX non-compliance (the penalty for noncompliance is loss of federal funds). And yet women’s teams still receive consistently less, even at schools where they excel and where their interest equals mens’.

    If you want more info, I wrote an article (not a particularly good one) on Title IX three years ago for Women’s eNews.

67. As for the use of the word ‘retard’, I wasn’t using it as an insult (well, except for sticking ‘fucking’ before the word which is neither here nor there), I was actually saying that I don’t like when women are treated as mentally retarded.

    Just so you know, you don’t refer to persons who have a mental/intelligence disability as “mentally retarded.” States usually do, like Virginia, only as a diagnosis which is all encompassing. But after that, they are referred to as people first, disability second.

    An example would be,”That boy over there has down syndrome,” not,”See that downs kid over there?”

    Also, by implying that you don’t like it when women are treated as if we are mentally retarded, you generalize that all persons with varying abilities are stupid, when in fact I know some kids with autism that have an awesome IQ, they just aren’t able to be as vocal as you and me.

    Never underestimate a person with any degree of a disability. Many persons with varying abilities like to be referred to as a real person, not just someone who sits around being mentally retarded.

    I used to say “retarded,” too, but not meaning it “as an insult.” But that is indeed what you are doing, much as the phrase, “jew me down” and “gyped” do. I also got smacked (at work) everytime I said it since I work for a non-profit that helps train medical professionals to have the ability to work with children with varying special needs.

    Would you be accepting if someone called a certain action “gay?” Or how about the all time favorite, “You scream like a girl?” Would you be accepting of others in your presence using derogatory terms or racial/sexist slurs? No? Then why be accepting of slurs against smartness or normalcy?

    Disability is Natural has a great article on person-first/inclusive language. Y’all should check it out.

68. Oh my lord. Well, I just got home from work and want to do nothing but shower and go to bed. I’ll come back tomorrow and try to respond to people who don’t sound angry that someone might have a different opinion from them. Rana said that I pat myself on the back for having liberal friends, and I guess it’s true that I do because it has taught me to have normal arguments and not use name calling or wish that birds shit on people. Some of you should really look into having friends with diverse opinions. It will make you less likely to rage at strangers online.

69. Hey Karol, if at any point you think this has gone overboard, I’ll close the comments. You’ve been an awfully good sport about this.

70. At this point there are 69 comments on this post, with topics ranging from Title IX to when life begins to famine-stricken children in Africa to school vouchers (damn me for mistakingly inserting that line and starting yet another topic chain). I’ve been called stupid, a bitch, smug, had someone hope that a bird shits on me, and had someone compare my buying items like cell phones or clothes to slavery. It’s been implied that I’ve seen the world because I’m a rich Republican consultant (which I sooooo wish was true but in fact I took a 75% pay cut to do what I love instead of what pays) but actually it was because my parents spent their lives looking at a world map in a country that implemented every liberal ideal discussed here (free healthcare, specifically abortions which were considered completely normal and discussed openly, government implemented equality, etc.)and dreamed of the day they could get that boot off their neck and actually be free, so that when they did get out they spent every penny they had showing me how other people live and how lucky I was to finally be an American. I’m sorry for you, Chris, that you were spoiled to how good you have it and what an amazing place you’re lucky enough to live in. Like I said in an earlier comment, I really recommend travel. I’ve been to places that don’t use currency, that never see tourists and you can’t begin to imagine how these people wish for the things you despise: modernization, capitalism, globalization, American enterprise.

    I don’t hold any of that against this site, Lauren has obviously been more than generous in letting me hijack this thread for ‘discussion with a Republican hour’. I completely ignored my work and my own blog to come back again and again. So, I’ll end this here, I’m sorry I didn’t get to a lot of stuff but clearly this thread has gotten out of hand.

    Last thought: if you actually care about changing anything (whether or not I agree with what you want to change), it’s a good idea to be reasoned and not angry. Angry people are easily dismissed. I believe that Michael Moore and the anti-war protests during the campaign did more to elect Bush than any other single factor. People saw the protestors and said ‘I want to be on whatever the opposite side is’ (you’d be surprised how often people make this call, my parents are Republicans- though totally liberal Republicans- because of Jimmy Carter. They chose to be on the opposite side from him.). I met these people in swing states like Colorado. They aren’t conservatives, they aren’t political, they’re just didn’t like the rage. Anger doesn’t win debates and it definitely doesn’t make progress. I’m not saying the right doesn’t do it, but they’ve learned from their mistakes in the Clinton years.

71. Pat Robertson. Jerry Falwell. Rush Limbaugh. Sean Hannity. Ann Coulter. Michael Savage. Bill O’Reilly. Michelle “Fatty, Fatty, Two by Four” Malkin. David Horowitz. Jonah Goldberg. The Swift Boat Veterans. Rick Santorum. Trent Lott. Bill “Arise, Daughter” Frist. Dick “Pottymouth” Cheney. Your comments that started this whole thread: “I hate that liberals treat women like we’re fucking retards. ”

    If the right has learned from its mistakes, I haven’t seen much evidence.

    While it may be true that people in general don’t respond well to vitriol, that’s no excuse for you, personally to ignore aspects of the issues you hold positions on. The best way to avoid being called stupid is to not parrot inaccurate information–like, for example, implying that America is a conspicuously charitable nation.

    The best way to get people to believe that you would be convinced if only they weren’t so rageful is to not dismiss their arguments or their level of experience out of hand: “Like I said in an earlier comment, I really recommend travel.” I have a sneaking suspicion that an extra smidge of sweetness and light wouldn’t make an iota of difference in convincing you that giving Nike a couple hundred dollars for a pair of sneakers is not the same as fairly compensating sweatshop workers for their labor.

72. Rageful? Where have I been angry here?

    I’m not angry with you. I’m disappointed in you. You’re a smart, hard-working, articulate woman, with a lot to offer. I would think that a person with the background you describe would be more open to charitable works, about helping those less fortunate than yourself, and more critical of those in power who use slander and insult as clubs to beat their opponents.

    You needn’t even be a liberal to do this — just a person who cares about more than her own comfort and who doesn’t need to keep congratulating herself for how reasonable and intelligent she is.

    You are a smart, competent woman with a lot to offer the world? Why be so selfish?

73. who don’t sound angry that someone might have a different opinion from them

    One more time: That’s not why we “sound angry.” It’s not because your opinion is DIFFERENT. Understand?

74. “Contrary to what most spoiled liberals believe, being poor is not cool or hip or deep.”

    Your point about appreciating money because you grew up poor is well-taken, but your comment about “spoiled liberals” reveals, I think, an unexamined prejudice. People who have money have all sorts of ways of rationalizing away the guilt they sometimes feel at having it, when so many people don’t. Generally, the typical Conservative response (not yours) is “poor people deserve to be poor” (i.e. I deserve not to be.). The Left response is often to side with the poor, and — yes — sometimes disingenuously, in terms of culture and clothes and lingo, in a misguided effort to appear much sexier and much less middle-class than they really are, but even that is generally rooted in a philosophical belief that the system can be changed to make it easier for the poor to overcome circumstances.

    And conservatives are right, of course, to be defense about this belief, since liberals also generally blame conservatives for the circumstances in question. thus, the conservative argument that social services for the disenfranchised really is the problem and not the solution. of course, the fact that this conservative argument actually saves them money (in services they don’t have to provide) is not lost on anyone.

    I suppose the cliche of the “spoiled liberal” is most true in high school and college, where the spoiled liberals in question have the most in common with the poor hipness factor they embrace: that is, their futures are not at all certain, they don’t have careers or jobs, they aren’t independent, etc.; not that this won’t change for most liberal, white, male college students when they pop out into the world. my younger siblings, who are in their twenties, all talk about not wanting to work for “the man” and so on, and they do wear their poverty as a badge of honor, and it is a little annoying, but really they can be allowed this pose since after all they are doing what they can to make money and have lives, and it’s not especially easy to do so.

    “Like I said, I was not just pro-choice but militantly so for most of my life. I saw pro-lifers as the dumbest people alive. And the more I’d argue with them, the more reasonable they sounded while I repeated the dumb ‘it’s my body! It’s my choice!’ mantra over and over as if that was an actual argument.”

    The argument is simple and actual. A human being has inviolable rights and society accords him/her certain inviolable protections. The flip side of this coin is a set of responsibilities and obligations, mostly having to do — in one way or another — with not doing harm to others. When these rights and responsibilities conflict, we have a moral dilemma.

    e.g. abortion

    The conservative pro-life argument attempts to resolve the conflict by saying a fertilized egg is a human being with rights and thus a woman forfeits control of her body when she becomes pregnant. Abortion is murder.

    For the sake of argument, let’s just leave science out of it (however, p.s., science is not on the side of conservatives on this one…but let’s pretend).

    The bottom line for conservatives is that a woman’s right to privacy and to control her own body is not as important as the rights of the single undifferentiated cell inside her body.

    The bottom line for pro-choice folks is that the rights of the woman are more important. Not to mention the inevitable erosion of all our rights, which must follow from the conclusion that a fertilized egg is a human with rights.

    If I personally truly believed that a fertilized egg was a human being I would expect to live in a society that protected each and every one of them equally with each and every one of us (multi-celled folks). So for starters: how can we protect citizens we don’t even know about? If a cell is a person, and women often don’t even know they’re pregnant for weeks, it seems self-evident that we have to have mandatory frequent (monthly? weekly?) pregnancy tests for all women. And, no, I’m not kidding. If you think a cell is a person and you don’t think it matters where these citizens are at any given time, you’re a hypocrite. So, mandatory frequent testing (starting at, puberty I guess); police investigations of every miscarriage as potential homicides/negligent homicides/etc.; and, really, if you’re not willing to go the distance on this, what does that say?

    If you think the above sounds like a joke, then you are admitting that your pro-life stance is inconsistent and unworkable, or to put it less nicely, you don’t really believe those little cells are human beings yet and you don’t really believe a woman is less important than same.

    The liberal argument is, we don’t know exactly when the potential for human life turns into the actuality of a human life, so let’s err on the safe side and say FOR SURE after he/she is born, and then be even more safe and say, FOR SURE in the third trimester (with protections limited by the overlapping rights of the mother), and then less sure and less sure until we get to the unworkable single cell definition of potential life which no liberals think is more important than the rights of citizens who we know to certainly exist.

    “I grew up in NYC and being a liberal was the default position. It took a lot of reading and thinking to change that.”

    I would be interested in your reading list.

75. Also, another fact is that women drop out of the workforce to get married and have babies. Of course the average pay of women is going to be lower than men. We’re not in the workforce long enough to change that.

    Karol–
    Do you have any stats to prove this point (that some women leaving the workforce actually drops the average for the whole)?

    I mean, I could argue that manual labor is mostly done by men, and that most of the accidents/incidents of disability due to work happens to men, so the average should even out since they also leave the workplace.

    But I have no fact to back that up, and would just be yanking stuff out of my ass, so to speak.

76. If a cell is a person, and women often don’t even know they’re pregnant for weeks, it seems self-evident that we have to have mandatory frequent (monthly? weekly?) pregnancy tests for all women. And, no, I’m not kidding. If you think a cell is a person and you don’t think it matters where these citizens are at any given time, you’re a hypocrite. So, mandatory frequent testing (starting at, puberty I guess); police investigations of every miscarriage as potential homicides/negligent homicides/etc.; and, really, if you’re not willing to go the distance on this, what does that say?

    Hey, worked for Romania.

77. That is a fabulous article, Anne. Thanks.

78. I’m afraid I have to differ on what makes abortion a moral choice and keeping it legal a moral necessity.

    The simple fact is that it does not matter what a blastocyst, an embryo, or a fetus is–whether they’re “a life,” whether they’re “a human life,” whatever. Doesn’t matter. Not one iota.

    What matters is whether any other living thing has the right to use my body for sustenance against my will.

    The answer is no.

    If I want it to do so? Fine. And I’ve definitely sustained other people’s lives in the past. I’ve donated blood and plasma. I’ve borne two children. I intend to be an organ donor when I die. (Speaking of which, I’d better update my paperwork.) The point is that I have consented to do all of these things.

    Consent is not a contract. It truly is a matter of whim. I can change my mind about a blood donation at any point up until that blood goes into another human being, and they have to throw out the pint I sat around for an hour donating. My family can throw a monkeywrench into the works about my organs if I die, before they ever go into another human being.

    Aaand, it is entirely possible for a blastocyst to impose a pregnancy on me that I did not consent to. It is also possible for me to change my mind and cease consenting after the pregnancy has begun.

    And I have the right to end that pregnancy in the safest possible manner for me. Even later in pregnancy, it is safer to abort than to give birth up until fairly late in the third trimester. It is my right to control my own body and to make decisions for my own body. If asserting that right kills another person, I’m sorry, but I am nobody’s life support machine unless I want to be.

    It never ceases to amaze me how people can refuse to be blood donors on account of needles make ’em feel icky, and nobody bats an eyelash even though blood loss patients die every damned day for lack of available blood to transfuse–nobody is suggesting we make blood donation mandatory–but let a woman assert control over her own body and that’s murder? Bullshit.

79. Dana —

    First of all, let me just say that I agree with you that (my) support for a woman’s right to choose does not depend on “what a blastocyst, an embryo, or a fetus is–whether they’re ‘a life,’ whether they’re ‘a human life.’ I agree with you because I believe — even if it is a human life — the rights of the human life of the woman trump any rights of the blastocyst/person that/who depends on the woman for survival.

    I also agree that it is your consent which is crucial here, your right to control and make decisions re your own body.

    However.

    I think your assertion that “consent is not a contract [but is] truly a matter of whim” strikes me as problematic. (possibly it’s just me and i will feel differently tomorrow, but that said…) In some other cases, your assertion feels right to me, e.g. sex. A person engaging in sex obviously has the right to cancel his/her consent at any time for any reason. There is no “you started it” clause. But I’m not convinced this logic applies to pregnancy. Clearly, to the degree that a person is aware that sexual intercourse may lead to pregnancy and that birth control does not always work, it is undoubtedly at least foreseeable that pregnancy is one of the possible effects of the person’s consent to sex. It doesn’t make sense to consent to an act but not to the foreseeable consequences of the same act. c.f. a medical procedure: if you consent to the procedure and you are aware of the possible effects of it, you have consented to (i.e. acknowledged) the possibility of those effects actually occurring. Therefore, it does not seem correct to me that “it is entirely possible for a “blastocyst to impose a pregnancy on me that I did not consent to.” Obviously, you knew it was a possible outcome, and just as obviously, you retain the right to terminate. But in this hypothetical, you did consent to the blastocyst imposition, in the sense that you were fully aware the imposition was one of the two possible outcomes.

    “It is also possible for me to change my mind and cease consenting after the pregnancy has begun.” Yes. And I support your right to do so. My support, however, degrades from full support (through the thirteenth week) to partial but still pretty strong support (up to the point of viability) and then extremely weak support (entirely resting on the considerations re your physical health) and finally, after delivery, no support at all.

    Since you know going in that “it’s still safer to abort than to give birth up until fairly late in the third trimester,” you also are clearly aware of the risks going in. That is, you can’t claim you weren’t aware of the potential risks in general. This is very different, it seems to me, from the circumstance of any specific complication that might arise in pregnancy. To be perfectly clear: I would never question your right to abort a fetus at any stage if the mother’s health is actually at risk (i.e. there’s a complication). But you seem to be suggesting that you have the right to change your mind about the potential general risks and simply (and without any reason to believe any complication is on the horizon) abort out of a desire to play safe odds. In the first trimester, this seems reasonable. In the third (i.e. past the point of viability), I may still support your technical right to abort, which I may abstractly believe you retain, but that particular hypothetical has the hypothetical you acting in a manner that seems manifestly cruel and unconscionable.

    Having said all that, it’s entirely possible that you reserve for yourself rights that you never intend to exercise. Where the state is involved, that sounds like a good idea to me. Still, there is a part of your argument that applies as well to children as it does to fetuses, and I find that disturbing.

80. God, I’m just sort of stunned at the hypocrisy of someone who votes for a party that has worked tirelessly to make pregnancy impossible to avoid whining about how she doesn’t want to have to pay for prenatal care for all those babies. The Bush Admin has worked with the wingnuts to make abortion unavailable and is working on BC and EC now. They’ve long since had sex ed in the stranglehold of Abstinence Only. And now along comes Karol who doesn’t want to pay for the consequences of her loyalty to that party.

    Oh, yeah, and Karol, saying we don’t like you just because you have a different opinion is, in a word, bullshit. You’re just trying to take your balls and go home.

    We disagree with you because your opinion is based on fallacies, was expressed in an insulting fashion, and because you cling to your strawmen in the face of real life people.

    Oh, yeah, and I’d like to know what led you to vote for Bush. I think I’m entitled to an answer. I spent a year fighting his war, and I became about as liberal as you can be after that year. See, that’s why a lot of people become liberals. They get conservative crap on the way, then they get out into the real world and realize that women aren’t having abortions because they’re lazy sluts, that black people aren’t having kids for welfare checks, and so forth.

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