After the Nth Gun Massacre in recent history, there was a small attempt to discuss potential ways that we might be able to reduce gun violence. But the far right went nuts (even more nuts than usual), stockpiling guns and ammunition, calling for everyone to carry concealed weapons and allowing more guns in schools, walking around in public openly carrying guns, claiming that massacres are inevitable because we don’t have mandatory prayer in schools (yes, a major GOP candidate for president actually said that), but most of all screaming about how the government is trying to take away our rights.
But what happens when the shoe is on the other foot? Last week, Family Research Council senior fellow Pat Fagan appeared on Washington Watch to discuss the 1972 Supreme Court decision that overturned a Massachusetts law banning the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried people, saying it may rank “as the single most destructive decision in the history of the Court.”
The court decided that single people have the right to contraceptives. What’s that got to do with marriage? Everything, because what the Supreme Court essentially said is single people have the right to engage in sexual intercourse. Well, societies have always forbidden that, there were laws against it. Now sure, single people are inclined to push the fences and jump over them, particularly if they are in love with each other and going onto marriage, but they always knew they were doing wrong. In this case the Supreme Court said, take those fences away they can do whatever they like, and they didn’t address at all what status children had, what status the commons had, by commons I mean the rest of the United States, have they got any standing in this case? They just said no, singles have the right to contraceptives we mean singles have the right to have sex outside of marriage. Brushing aside millennia, thousands and thousands of years of wisdom, tradition, culture and setting in motion what we have.
It’s not the contraception, everybody thinks it’s about contraception, but what this court case said was young people have the right to engage in sex outside of marriage. Society never gave young people that right, functioning societies don’t do that, they stop it, they punish it, they corral people, they shame people, they do whatever. The institution for the expression of sexuality is marriage and all societies always shepherded young people there, what the Supreme Court said was forget that shepherding, you can’t block that, that’s not to be done.
So if the left acted like the right, shouldn’t progressives be screaming that the Family Research Council is trying to take away our rights? They are coming for our birth control! Shouldn’t we be stockpiling condoms? Having premarital sex in public? Calling for more sex education in schools? Screaming that after they take away our guns and sex, they will outlaw rock and roll?
Don’t believe me? Less than a month ago, over one third of the members of the Virginia State House of Delegates voted in favor of a law that makes cohabitation and sex outside of marriage (which includes all gay sex) punishable by a $500 fine for the first offense, and up to a year in jail plus a fine of $2,500 for a second offense.
Come on, where is the outrage?
9 Comments
I just wanted to say, I really feel sorry for all of you living in the USA. The more I read about it, the more awkward and … really horrible your country appears.
My honest condolences.
I’d say if you don’t believe in abortion and preventing preganancy, but you do believe in killing (you wouldn’t own a gun if you didn’t believe in killing), you would make a good Republican. No hypocrisy in that formula.
Just read a book from 1955 called “We die Alone”
So I read about Norway has the second highest capital income in Europe. Universal Health care, Free education for all. What is wrong with us? As Patrick Muller says “My honest Condolences.”
in 1967, I was an OB nurse. I remember the obstetrician telling the story of his trip to Australia. His wife had a problem and just plain got free health care. He thought it was wonderful.
Since 2000, I felt this country going back to the middle ages. When we have the Religious zealots spouting off (crusades) we are rewarded with the plague. 1/2 of Norway was wiped out.
I own a gun and don’t believe in killing
Patrick, I very much appreciate (meaning I understand) your wish of condolences. Sitting here inside the US, I feel a ever larger uneasiness in the pit of my stomach. Liberals are still patting each other on the back because Obama won in November and the Senate is still “controlled” by a Democratic majority – at least on paper. I’m watching the erosion of many of the things which liberals lament others’ comments on, while those same liberals keep missing the tremendous inroads being made to destroy those things at the state level.
I don’t think it is a conspiracy theory any longer. It is a conspiracy in practice. Witness the numerous attempts to whittle away voting rights that have popped up over the last year in Republican/Tea Party controlled statehouses. Look at the gradually tighter and tighter noose being put around the neck of abortion rights as states pass ever more restrictive laws. Check out the states writing their own immigration laws – each just a bit different than the last. The overall strategy of this conspiracy is to have move through the Federal courts and get rulings that will stretch the current legal understandings so that they become as restrictive as possible without actually overturning the original rulings.
These activities aren’t just happening spontaneously. They are being orchestrated by well funded organizations – funded by folks like the Koch brothers. They have a very real purpose and, yes, it is to restrict what many of us take to be rights. Just remember, as much as some think that voting and control of one’s own body are rights, there are those who wish to control those actions in others and they are well funded and, at least for the time being, are being rather successful in implementing their conspiracy’s strategies.
Oh, and DUCKMAN, I hear you, and I’m glad you don’t believe in killing. I used to develop my skill at target shooting (haven’t in quite a while). Guns aren’t always intended by those who own them to be used for killing – but – the history of guns paints a pretty clear picture that killing is their ancestry.
Duckman: Ahimsa. Except for the fun of shooting (and scaring the critters in the woods) why would you own a gun if you didn’t believe in killing? My father went out and shot migrating ducks in the fall. That is killing. Only reason I can think is to have a broken shot gun to point at people.
The difference between left and right?
The left pushes for laws that try to guarantee what you CAN do and the right pushes for laws that tell you what you CAN’T do.
The righties in the US are sex obsessed.
They’re so afeared of big gubmint that they favor intrusive laws like this.
@John (#6) That’s not exactly correct, as the right would tell you that the left is very much about CAN’T, as in mandating environmental restrictions, gun control,removing inheritances, etc.
But yeah, the righties are knotted up in their tighty whities, you got that right.
Wait, what? Conservatives in Virginia voting in favor of legislation which would take away anyone’s rights? I’m just shocked.