Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Let Them Be Stupid



At 64 I have gained the wisdom to know that people are often foolish, more often lazy and very often have exactly what they deserve. Put another way, you can't stop people from being stupid, as my husband says. Ergo, if people want to carry substandard insurance, let them as long as it doesn't mean a penny of increase in insured people's premiums. If they want to eat transfats let them. Hell, insert an IV and let them mainline the stuff. The world is over populated and with any luck they will die of their stupidity before they can procreate. After all, Christians keep telling us that it is a far, far better place they go. Well, let the stupid prepare to get on the bus.

Wednesday, November 6, 2013

Purely a Matter of Commerce


 
The other night Bill Maher interviewed Ann Coulter – can’t imagine why he bothers with the creature.  In my opinion to say that she is a liar is to do grievous injury to liars all over the world.  The woman is nothing more or less than an assassin whose preferred weapons are tongue and pen. 
Maher kept asking if she truly believes the things she says.  He misses the point.  Of course she believes what she says; she believes it will make money and that is the only point on her moral compass.  Coulter demonstrated as much when she made reference to her huge audience and the enormous earnings gleaned from her books as proof of her moral commitment to her version of Conservatism and, may Goddess help the Christians, Christianity.
She confirmed her biased view of the Constitution – the woman is supposedly a Constitutional lawyer – when she asserted that there are no grounds in the Constitution for the right to a safe, legal abortion.  This is utter flummery.  The right of choice is grounded in the implied right to privacy of the 14th Amendment.  Maher did not counter with the obvious comeback that if Roe can be viewed as tenuous with regard to Constitutional authority it is no more so than assuming that every gun owner qualifies as “well armed militia” under the 2nd Amendment.  
I have long held that Coulter, Limbaugh, Alex Jones and all the other bile spewing maggots on the Right given an extra $10,000,000 a year without a penny on their income tax would cross dress, run around the Hill singing the national anthem in Farsi and end their performance by taking a leak in unison in Sarah Palin’s mobile makeup kit. 
They are dangerous.  They are cruel.  They are provocateurs and parasites praying on the paranoid, the weak-minded and the gullible like fly larvae on a rotted corpse.  What they are not are true believers.  Anymore than the gun lobby and manufactures can be seen as true believers in the rights of gun owners.  It is purely a matter of commerce.  It is the very definition of cynicism.    

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Musings of an Angry Feminist


 
 
The Constitutional test known as the “undue burden” standard dates back to the 19th Century.  In one of its most recent iteration Sandra Day O’Connor gave voice to the standard - City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 462 US 416 (1983) - when she wrote: "If the particular regulation does not 'unduly burden' the fundamental right, then our evaluation of that regulation is limited to our determination that the regulation rationally relates to a legitimate state purpose." 
In plain English, when the United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans upheld Texas’ monstrous abortion law they may have upheld Texas’ unconstitutional and accordingly unlawful overreach in placing an undue burden upon Texas women with regard to exercising their reproductive freedom under Roe v. Wade.  While this bloody tyranny is hashed out over the coming months by people safely removed from reality in their long black robes, flesh and blood women may well die. They will not die easy.  I have seen death by back alley butcher and death by coat hanger.
I am of the opinion that we should begin to keep morbidity and mortality statistics starting as of this date to record those deaths.  We should think about the legislators who crafted and passed the legislation, not to mention that pathetic excuse for a governor who signed it into law, as legally and morally responsible for those deaths resulting from their premeditated, unconstitutional and illegal abuse of power.  To wit: when someone dies in the commission of a crime that death can be viewed as murder.  Now I realize that these sidewinders enjoy some measure of immunity while holding office.  However, I doubt that it extends to homicide.  Let us redefine the argument women.