Republican war on women

Republicans like to claim that their inflammatory language on the topic of abortion doesn't lead to violence. They like to say that they didn't explicitly instruct anyone to go and kill an abortion doctor.

Generally that's true, but when they say things like abortion doctors should fear for their lives, they are clearly lying. Youtube psycho/fame whore Josh Feuerstein - calls for the killing of abortion doctors in the above link. What might even be more offensive is the glib way he switches from baying for blood to rustling up social media followers immediately after.

Yes, after saying that abortion providers - who provide lots of health care services - should be killed, he turns on a dime and starts trawling for social media follows. The prospective murdering of abortion doctors troubles him so little that he quite easily transitions to securing more followers on social networks. Cynical, unsympathetic, dismissive of the rule of law, arrogant, callous toward women in need, and grasping for fame.

What a guy.

Another figure who bears responsibility for murders at abortion clinic is Bill O'Reilly. He trolled abortion doctor George Tiller for several years. During that time, he pooh-poohed women's reasons for getting abortions, suggesting the women thought little of ending their pregnancies He said Tiller was guilty of "Nazi stuff". He also damned Kathleen Sibelius, claiming that the afterlife would be bad for her because she allowed Tiller to do abortions. Citing Nazi stuff is troubling while invoking hell for Sibelius is also troubling. O'Reilly's focus on Tiller over the course of four years put the doctor in the spotlight on the topic of an issue that elicits strong reactions. O'Reilly's use of the term "Tiller the Baby Killer" was used on the floor of the Senate by Robert Dornan. So it refutes the idea that words don't matter, when a congressman is quoting Bill O'Reilly. Trying to cast someone you disagree with in such inflammatory terms did not kill Tiller in and of itself, but it put him in the spotlight for people of limited intelligence and extreme values. I wonder if, in the dark of the night, O'Reilly thinks about his role in endangering people.

O'Reilly might decry the actions of someone like Robert Dear, but his inflammatory speech to sympathetic and low-information viewers facilitated the murderous actions of killer Scott Roeder.

This is why it's clear that there is a Republican War on Women.

Rand Paul's fake libertarianism

Rand Paul likes to claim that he is a libertarian. He's all for the rights of the in-duh-vid-uals. Protect peoples' rights and let people prosper without interference from big gub'mint! People are smart! They hate anyone trying to tell them what to do. So government? Stay out of it! Fair enough. If that's what you believe, it's a bit socially Darwinistic for my liking, but if you're truly against government, so be it. If you think government shouldn't be sticking its nose in anything and should be small, well, we'd disagree, but I can respect that.

Exxxxxxcept, sometimes he's not for freedom. For instance, while he's supported a bill preventing the feds from prosecuting people for medical marijuana in states where it was legal, he's also played to the social conservatives by claiming he doesn't think marijuana should be legalized. C'mon Rand, either you're for freedom or you're not.

Gay people getting married? If you're for freedom, surely you're in favor of that? Right? Not in the case of Rand Paul. To him it's icky. Doesn't sound very live-and-let-live. That's not the worst of it though. In this case, the hypocrisy goes even deeper. He's willing to allow states to regulate marriage. But that is only because he believes it's the best way to ensure that marriage is defined as one-man-one-woman. So rather than allowing people to marry freely, Rand would actually use government as a weapon to enact his legislative agenda. Again, how is this man considered a libertarian? Maybe there were some asterisks in the Bill of Rights that I didn't catch? (Everyone had the right to free speech except for black people? Maybe that was in small print?)

Abortion. Allowing women self-determination over their bodies seems like it would make Paul's libertarian views on this pretty clear, right? Certainly he would want women to be able to control what they did to their bodies. Nope. Wrong again. He authored the "Fetal Personhood Bill" which defines life as beginning at conception. It would outlaw all abortions. Kind of the Anti-Libertarianism. Planned Parenthood gives him a 0 percent rating and the National Right to Life Committee gives him a perfect score. Hmmm...I'm sensing a pattern in unprincipled libertarianism.

He's also in favor of a massive increase in military spending. Again, doesn't seem like that would be the position of someone who wants a smaller government. But our Rand is a libertarian because...uh.....FREEEDOM!!!!!!

Drones? You wouldn't think that someone in favor of less government would like them. But again, Rand defies expectations. It's pretty clear that Rand likes the mavericky-impression generated by the term libertarian, but not so much its implications in real life. I'm not a fan of knuckle draggers whose unapologetic Christian conservatism would make the United States an analog of Iran, but on the other hand, at least I know where those legislators stand. That's what they want. Rand Paul likes pretend he's one of a new breed of Republicans, but he doesn't even have the courage of his convictions, as well as having icky Republican convictions.