What republicans are showing us is the results of repressed sexual desire. The evangelicals are very obsessed with the very thing they supposedly can't have, sex. What we have seen in the past is that it's all hooey....from Jim Baker to Jimmy Swaggart to several republicans who have been caught being unfaithful to their wives (and getting their girlfriends abortions), to republicans that have been caught looking for gay sex in airport bathrooms ...we see they are all full of sh%t. Every campaign season republicans come up with new culture war topics that they know will gin up their base. Since they are not capable of doing anything but supporting the gun lobby and giving rich people tax breaks, they use the culture war to redirect their base from topics that really matter like healthcare, affordable child care, tax breaks for the middle class, affordable college tuition and things like that which they don't and will never support. The other thing is that they look at women as one of the biggest threats to their party's power, so they concentrate all their effort on punishing women by controlling them and trapping them with pregnancy. The next thing they will do will be to outlaw giving a child up for adoption while cutting SNAP and WIC benefits and eliminating school lunches effectively ensuring that the kids they force you to have will starve to death. Am I the only one who sees how diabolical this really is? Why aren't people with platforms out there calling these monsters out for who they really are. If I were well known, I would not be mincing words or being polite on these bs news networks....I would be calling them out as the fascist neo-nazis they really are!!
The current GOP playbook even goes after contraceptives because for them:
Punishing perceived promiscuity
Is more important to Republicans
Than preventing unplanned pregnancies
If they wanted LESS abortions, birth control and accurate sex education would be good things. But they’d rather shame than solve the problem. They are #HypiChristians, who care nothing for a baby after it CAN ACTUALLY CRY.
Furthermore, they preach a #SwissCheeseChristianity with holes where The Golden Rule and “Judge not, lest ye be judged” would go.
But they go farther still. They are #ProSTRIFE with heartless #AbortionAbsolutism that in many cases overrides the health risk to the mother. What if she’s already a mom, and Daddy has to explain to Sally and Timmy why Mommy has to die a horrible death from an ectopic pregnancy? Is that what a patriot roots for?
By focusing obsessively about sexual issues as "the indeciency of the opposition", the GOP hopes to misdirect attention away from its own indecency. It may be a distorted projection of their own guilt.
The Republicans are deflecting from economic and other issues they don't want to debate, to sexual related issues they know can't, or won't be ignored. They are desperately trying to continue with policies that enrich the few at the expense of the majority, so they are creating distractions to avoid the inevitable reckoning for as long as possible.
there are rethuglicans who openly espouse preventing women from having ANY position of power at all, which makes me wonder how they can trust a woman to be a parent? (for example: https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1645606637166796800 ) or maybe they don't ...
NOTE: edited to include video of offensive sexist commentary
For Republicans, it seems the only way to remove restraints on the few is the control the many and call it freedom. It's a twisted logic, but that is their hallmark. This obsession with sex is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the control of reproduction, family and sex in general is a function of religion in about every culture, even when prostitution was a sacred institution in the Ancient Greek City-states. Political involvement in sex is nothing new.
However, I'd like to hope we are a little beyond the restrictive moralities of the Bronze-age Eastern Mediterranean. From a social point of view, controlling access to sex and reproduction allows for the control of individuals at the most intimate level. It is a form of domination that is insidious in its capacity to warp the individual into a hyper-objectification of sex. When sex is an object of power, it is no longer intimate, no longer personal, and operates in a sotto voce public sphere where the expectation is not for people to enjoy sex, but to only reproduce. Puritanism 101. In 1988, Pat Robertson's presidential campaign included a position to criminalize contraception so America could have enough people to fight and win Armageddon. Replace Armageddon with cheap, obedient labor, and you have the modern Republican platform, in as much as there is one.
Psychologically, there is a deep rift in the psyche of people who operate under the assumption that the female body must be controlled. It is part Medieval, part modern. In the former, woman is the 'Sacred Whore' who is the fusion of temptation, salvation, and sublime transcendence when she foregoes her 'promiscuous nature,' and who must be controlled lest she share her gifts too broadly. In the latter, woman represents the schism within the mind of some men that separates them from their Anima, in Jungian terms, their inner feminine, or their capacity to see beyond a linear conception of the world and feel empathy for others. In either case, woman is object to be used for salvation or sex, but is never a fully actualized human being sharing fully in either.
In the case of those of us who are LGBTQIA+, we are distinctly Other to be consigned to the flames of the inquisition without an opportunity for repentance and salvation. As there is nothing for us to repent, we can forego the flames of the American Inquisition. It doesn't change the fact that we are an inconvenient wrench in the cogs of their political machine that most Republicans wouldn't mind seeing ground to dust.
In light of this, one wonders how Republican women square this particular circle. I remember Phyllis Shaffley from the 80's. That one still doesn't make sense, unless we come back to the old adage, all women are equal, but some are more equal than others.
I think one of the things we are seeing is the logical conclusion of the social relations of the human realm to the natural realm that developed during the Industrial Revolution. In order to progress at the pace it did, the political machines in Northeastern Europe had to leverage their production-oriented power to disenchant the natural world and open it to the exploitation of resources. A part of that disenchantment was the separation of human from nature. In that process, we removed the sacred nature of relations of one human to another, anonymizing it under terms like customer, consumer, and labor. These generally focus attention not on the human but on a function that is rationally embedded in their system of production and consumption, supply and demand. As such, the body is another resource to be exploited, another production mechanism that creates more consumers and laborers. It's all just business because our moral standard is the unrestrained pursuit of profit. All other considerations are simply distractions from that essential goal.
I think everyone here agrees that the Republican Party is no longer what it used to be. The challenge is to convince voters. I still have relatives that will vote Republican no matter what, even when they openly disagree or are even angry at the way the party has left them behind. The politics has turned into religion, and it's very difficult to reason with people. I think what we need is a fair news program (think what HBO Newsroom tried to accomplish) to correctly inform people and an education system that teaches our kids to reason. This will be a long fight, but without these, I'm afraid we'll no longer have a country.
True! It's also a fairly standard tactic for cults to exert authoritarian control over the sex lives of adherents. Anxious and sexually frustrated people with an unmet desire to belong to an ideologically homogenous community are the easiest people to manipulate.
"The best defense is a good offense". I remember hearing that phrase long ago. Since sex is one of the strongest drives in humans, especially the young, what better way to distract and attack those beleaguered by housing shortages, high rents and all the privations of stagnant wages and a rigged system of corrupt government and too many billionaires? The obscenely wealthy and all those who work for them are the enemy! Don't forget it for a second!!
It makes me want to nominate a fertilized egg for President. I’m kidding, of course, but it seems to me that a creature endowed with full personhood should at the very least have some consciousness of their surroundings.
The more kids born into poverty keeps lots of consumers and parents of consumers spending $$$ at corporations they own srock in. Keeping parents spending on kids and taking care of more kids keeps them from getting ahead with higher paying jobs, and buying houses and stayjng renters. It makes lots of future kids to work for minumum wage and be forced to join the military,when they can't afford rent and neesessities, to fight in wars. Another reason V.P. Cheney was so fixed on war wsd to have combat experienced Americans ready to fight( and with lots if military grade weopons is because of the movie RED DAWN. Even more so because the movie was set in Wyoming area. I'm not sure if the movie was made as a wag the dov senario as the purpose for the movie. Sorry if that was a bit off, I have asberghers but i can spot a pattern a mile a way.
I do not understand how one man can make a decision that affects every woman in our country. I am starting to doubt the entire judicial setup. This disgusting judge or equally disgusting Clarence Thomas, our country needs to rethink judges and how they are chosen. And how long they are allowed to stay in power.
What republicans are showing us is the results of repressed sexual desire. The evangelicals are very obsessed with the very thing they supposedly can't have, sex. What we have seen in the past is that it's all hooey....from Jim Baker to Jimmy Swaggart to several republicans who have been caught being unfaithful to their wives (and getting their girlfriends abortions), to republicans that have been caught looking for gay sex in airport bathrooms ...we see they are all full of sh%t. Every campaign season republicans come up with new culture war topics that they know will gin up their base. Since they are not capable of doing anything but supporting the gun lobby and giving rich people tax breaks, they use the culture war to redirect their base from topics that really matter like healthcare, affordable child care, tax breaks for the middle class, affordable college tuition and things like that which they don't and will never support. The other thing is that they look at women as one of the biggest threats to their party's power, so they concentrate all their effort on punishing women by controlling them and trapping them with pregnancy. The next thing they will do will be to outlaw giving a child up for adoption while cutting SNAP and WIC benefits and eliminating school lunches effectively ensuring that the kids they force you to have will starve to death. Am I the only one who sees how diabolical this really is? Why aren't people with platforms out there calling these monsters out for who they really are. If I were well known, I would not be mincing words or being polite on these bs news networks....I would be calling them out as the fascist neo-nazis they really are!!
The current GOP playbook even goes after contraceptives because for them:
Punishing perceived promiscuity
Is more important to Republicans
Than preventing unplanned pregnancies
If they wanted LESS abortions, birth control and accurate sex education would be good things. But they’d rather shame than solve the problem. They are #HypiChristians, who care nothing for a baby after it CAN ACTUALLY CRY.
Furthermore, they preach a #SwissCheeseChristianity with holes where The Golden Rule and “Judge not, lest ye be judged” would go.
But they go farther still. They are #ProSTRIFE with heartless #AbortionAbsolutism that in many cases overrides the health risk to the mother. What if she’s already a mom, and Daddy has to explain to Sally and Timmy why Mommy has to die a horrible death from an ectopic pregnancy? Is that what a patriot roots for?
The Republican Party is now America’s Metastatic Tumor
By focusing obsessively about sexual issues as "the indeciency of the opposition", the GOP hopes to misdirect attention away from its own indecency. It may be a distorted projection of their own guilt.
The Republicans are deflecting from economic and other issues they don't want to debate, to sexual related issues they know can't, or won't be ignored. They are desperately trying to continue with policies that enrich the few at the expense of the majority, so they are creating distractions to avoid the inevitable reckoning for as long as possible.
They are the party of perverts and sexual predators. They project on to the Democrats their own filthy minds.
weirdly, rethuglicans don't favor stiff penalties for rape (for example: https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-sentences-admitted-rapist-probation-prison-time/story?id=81264495 )
and shockingly, on a related issue, child marriage is legal in 43 US states (see here: https://www.equalitynow.org/learn_more_child_marriage_us/#:~:text=Child%20marriage%20is%20currently%20legal,a%20parental%20or%20judicial%20waiver. )
there are rethuglicans who openly espouse preventing women from having ANY position of power at all, which makes me wonder how they can trust a woman to be a parent? (for example: https://twitter.com/patriottakes/status/1645606637166796800 ) or maybe they don't ...
NOTE: edited to include video of offensive sexist commentary
For Republicans, it seems the only way to remove restraints on the few is the control the many and call it freedom. It's a twisted logic, but that is their hallmark. This obsession with sex is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition, and the control of reproduction, family and sex in general is a function of religion in about every culture, even when prostitution was a sacred institution in the Ancient Greek City-states. Political involvement in sex is nothing new.
However, I'd like to hope we are a little beyond the restrictive moralities of the Bronze-age Eastern Mediterranean. From a social point of view, controlling access to sex and reproduction allows for the control of individuals at the most intimate level. It is a form of domination that is insidious in its capacity to warp the individual into a hyper-objectification of sex. When sex is an object of power, it is no longer intimate, no longer personal, and operates in a sotto voce public sphere where the expectation is not for people to enjoy sex, but to only reproduce. Puritanism 101. In 1988, Pat Robertson's presidential campaign included a position to criminalize contraception so America could have enough people to fight and win Armageddon. Replace Armageddon with cheap, obedient labor, and you have the modern Republican platform, in as much as there is one.
Psychologically, there is a deep rift in the psyche of people who operate under the assumption that the female body must be controlled. It is part Medieval, part modern. In the former, woman is the 'Sacred Whore' who is the fusion of temptation, salvation, and sublime transcendence when she foregoes her 'promiscuous nature,' and who must be controlled lest she share her gifts too broadly. In the latter, woman represents the schism within the mind of some men that separates them from their Anima, in Jungian terms, their inner feminine, or their capacity to see beyond a linear conception of the world and feel empathy for others. In either case, woman is object to be used for salvation or sex, but is never a fully actualized human being sharing fully in either.
In the case of those of us who are LGBTQIA+, we are distinctly Other to be consigned to the flames of the inquisition without an opportunity for repentance and salvation. As there is nothing for us to repent, we can forego the flames of the American Inquisition. It doesn't change the fact that we are an inconvenient wrench in the cogs of their political machine that most Republicans wouldn't mind seeing ground to dust.
In light of this, one wonders how Republican women square this particular circle. I remember Phyllis Shaffley from the 80's. That one still doesn't make sense, unless we come back to the old adage, all women are equal, but some are more equal than others.
I think one of the things we are seeing is the logical conclusion of the social relations of the human realm to the natural realm that developed during the Industrial Revolution. In order to progress at the pace it did, the political machines in Northeastern Europe had to leverage their production-oriented power to disenchant the natural world and open it to the exploitation of resources. A part of that disenchantment was the separation of human from nature. In that process, we removed the sacred nature of relations of one human to another, anonymizing it under terms like customer, consumer, and labor. These generally focus attention not on the human but on a function that is rationally embedded in their system of production and consumption, supply and demand. As such, the body is another resource to be exploited, another production mechanism that creates more consumers and laborers. It's all just business because our moral standard is the unrestrained pursuit of profit. All other considerations are simply distractions from that essential goal.
I think everyone here agrees that the Republican Party is no longer what it used to be. The challenge is to convince voters. I still have relatives that will vote Republican no matter what, even when they openly disagree or are even angry at the way the party has left them behind. The politics has turned into religion, and it's very difficult to reason with people. I think what we need is a fair news program (think what HBO Newsroom tried to accomplish) to correctly inform people and an education system that teaches our kids to reason. This will be a long fight, but without these, I'm afraid we'll no longer have a country.
True! It's also a fairly standard tactic for cults to exert authoritarian control over the sex lives of adherents. Anxious and sexually frustrated people with an unmet desire to belong to an ideologically homogenous community are the easiest people to manipulate.
"The best defense is a good offense". I remember hearing that phrase long ago. Since sex is one of the strongest drives in humans, especially the young, what better way to distract and attack those beleaguered by housing shortages, high rents and all the privations of stagnant wages and a rigged system of corrupt government and too many billionaires? The obscenely wealthy and all those who work for them are the enemy! Don't forget it for a second!!
It makes me want to nominate a fertilized egg for President. I’m kidding, of course, but it seems to me that a creature endowed with full personhood should at the very least have some consciousness of their surroundings.
This is what is known about babies born “intersex”, ie glaring or subtle differences with regard to gender expression:
Not XX and not XY one in 1,666 births
Klinefelter (XXY) one in 1,000 births
Androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 13,000 births
Partial androgen insensitivity syndrome one in 130,000 births
Classical congenital adrenal hyperplasia one in 13,000 births
Late onset adrenal hyperplasia one in 66 individuals
Vaginal agenesis one in 6,000 births
Ovotestes one in 83,000 births
Idiopathic (no discernable medical cause) one in 110,000 births
Iatrogenic (caused by medical treatment, for instance progestin administered to pregnant mother) no estimate
5 alpha reductase deficiency no estimate
Mixed gonadal dysgenesis no estimate
Complete gonadal dysgenesis one in 150,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening in perineum or along penile shaft) one in 2,000 births
Hypospadias (urethral opening between corona and tip of glans penis) one in 770 births
Total number of people whose bodies differ from standard male or female one in 100 births
Total number of people receiving surgery to “normalize” genital appearance one or two in 1,000 births
The more kids born into poverty keeps lots of consumers and parents of consumers spending $$$ at corporations they own srock in. Keeping parents spending on kids and taking care of more kids keeps them from getting ahead with higher paying jobs, and buying houses and stayjng renters. It makes lots of future kids to work for minumum wage and be forced to join the military,when they can't afford rent and neesessities, to fight in wars. Another reason V.P. Cheney was so fixed on war wsd to have combat experienced Americans ready to fight( and with lots if military grade weopons is because of the movie RED DAWN. Even more so because the movie was set in Wyoming area. I'm not sure if the movie was made as a wag the dov senario as the purpose for the movie. Sorry if that was a bit off, I have asberghers but i can spot a pattern a mile a way.
If they complain so much about sexualising children, why do they condone child beauty queens?
I do not understand how one man can make a decision that affects every woman in our country. I am starting to doubt the entire judicial setup. This disgusting judge or equally disgusting Clarence Thomas, our country needs to rethink judges and how they are chosen. And how long they are allowed to stay in power.