Compromising Women's Rights, Again

I was alarmed, but not altogether surprised, to hear that one of Hillary's possible VP choices is Tim Kaine.  As I scan through articles about possible VP's, Kaine keeps coming up as the most likely because he is "safe."

Jeez Louise, isn't this the year we ought to finally stop going for "safe?!"  We have learned that that idiot with the ducktail can say any damn thing he wants and only garners admiration from his followers for saying any damn thing he wants.  Remember W???  He was admired because he said whatever came off the top of his head, and told voters if they didn't like it they didn't have to vote for him.

And this is the year -- this was the week -- that Dems led by John Lewis made history by recalling the sixties with a sit-in on the floor of the House.  Finally, finally, we were able to say enough killing, we will risk our careers to do the right thing.  Wow.  That doesn't happen often among Dems.

Meanwhile, Tim Kaine, along with nearly every other damn Democrat, supports the second amendment.  Because you sure can't begin a fight for gun control unless you reassure all the paranoids and wackos out there that you aren't going to take away their guns.  The man from the state that in 2007 ended up with 33 young people dead at Virginia Tech would propose to limit high-capacity weapons to ten bullets.  That means only ten dead as opposed to fifteen.  That's just pathetic.

But I want to talk about Tim Kaine and abortion.  Tim Kaine is one of those I don't believe in abortion but I support a woman's right to choose people.  Really.  What that attitude has gotten us over the years is more and more abortion restrictions as the people who are really passionate about women's rights -- limiting them, that is -- are willing to dig in the dirt to find any wormhole that will allow them to take away another path to access of that right.

The half-hearted support for women's right to choose by those who "don't believe in abortion" has led to an appalling lack of understanding of just how under attack women have been.  It has led to women on the Supreme Court joining with men in a 9-0 opinion to reverse Massachusetts' ruling allowing a buffer zone banning protesters around abortion clinics.  Nine justices saw the protests as a first amendment free-speech issue rather than the harassment and threat to women's rights that they really are.

Hillary had a number of women on her VP list, but the Dems are afraid that having two women on a ticket would jeopardize her ability to win.  I believe it was Amy Klobuchar who was asked by Rachel Maddow whether choosing two women would jeopardize Hillary's chances.  She replied that we have a long history of same sex candidates running together successfully on the presidential ticket.  Hmmm.

And then there is the fear of going too liberal.  Hillary, who won the nomination by claiming that she is a proud progressive.  Imagine the Dems surprise when Bernie supporters don't jump on board because Hillary's VP choice is just another safe moderate.

I am hoping that all the excitement about Tim Kaine is a circle jerk by moderate Dems who want to reassure themselves that Hillary isn't really going to try to shake things up the way her fight against Bernie led us to believe.  I wonder at the media that continues to act like Bernie doesn't count.  After all the people he got out to vote, I have heard it said more than once that he no longer has any power and that he should just concede and get out of the way.  This could be the way the Dems shoot themselves in the foot again, this time, when it seems that we have everything, including a hateful batshit crazy opponent, in our favor.

I like Elizabeth Warren in the Senate rattling all those cages, and apparently she likes it too.  But  Sherrod Brown, another VP possible, is one of my all-time favorite people, fearless and progressive, and with that sexy whiskey voice that I could listen to forever.  And then there are actually a number of extremely qualified women, Klobuchar included.

And that takes me, once again, back to abortion.  If the first woman presidential nominee does not feel confident enough about the fight for women's rights to choose a solidly pro-choice candidate for VP, she will be telling us all that women's reproductive rights are not important enough to fight for, right from the start.  If this is the year of the woman, this should be the year that we no longer allow others to philosophize, proselytize, waffle or opine on how a woman's reproductive life should be legislated.  It is time to stop listening, not just to the opinion of the anti-abortion brigade, but to the moderate equivocators.  For once, we need to start with Roe v. Wade and fight against all the bites that have been taken out of that freedom since 1973.  Ignoring the abortion fight means a lot of women are not going to be voting, because they will see that, once again, politicians are not fighting for them.

Here's another perspective.

How bizarre would it be for someone to say, "I don't believe in being gay for myself, but other people have the right to be gay."  Or, "I wouldn't believe in affirmative action for myself, but it's okay if other people want to believe in it."

It's the "believing in it" that has allowed pseudo science, religious bigotry and false facts to twist legislation around against far too many individual rights.  Women have the right to privacy, to the best medical care available, to a doctor-patient relationship not impaired by government oversight.  They have the right to affordable and accessible health care whether it is for abortion or a head cold, contraception or high blood pressure.

It would be absurd for someone to opine about whether high blood pressure really exists or needs to be treated.  Because opinions on abortion by those against abortion have been given validity, we are reaping hundreds of bad laws.  The laws that have sprung up around when and where a woman can have an abortion, whether she can access birth control, and forcing her to pay; the laws that force doctors to lie or not answer questions accurately about contraception and abortion; the laws that impose restrictions on clinics that force them to shut down; the laws that allow harassment and threats in the name of freedom of speech.  They all come from that crack in the window that lets people whose lives are not affected have opinions on women's reproductive rights.

And all y'all can have your opinions.  I don't have to listen to those opinions if I don't want to.  Unless you are in charge.  This is why we Dems need to fight for candidates that will fight for us.  Without compromise.  Without equivocation.  

And "moderate," "safe" candidates like Tim Kaine just don't cut it.

What's Different About Abortion

As the mad Christians in our nation fight to preserve their right to control the bodies of women, I wonder why it is that we have been -- for decades -- victimized by this plague of anti-democratic, anti-freedom, anti-privacy, anti-women wingnuts.  As those in the LGBT community gain freedom and acceptance, as African Americans insist that their rights are respected by law officers, women continue to have their rights violated and their privacy -- and bodies -- invaded.  Some of the most liberal of our lawmakers deem it success when they reach a compromise that only violates some women.

How can this be, when we are fifty percent of the American people?  How can this be when most of us of reproductive age use birth control, many of us have had abortions, and most of us believe that women have the right to make those decisions privately?

At the heart of this battle for reproductive rights is the right to privacy.  Whether or not women should use contraception or have an abortion is so incredibly personal.  But it has become the center of public debate because at its core it has to do with sex.  This debate is not about safety or even about life.  Pure and simple, this is about forcing women who have sex to bear the consequences.  And the vitriol is so intense that those at the far radical religious right claim that even a married woman must literally carry the burden of the act of sex.  The flights of fancy the anti-abortion brigade have taken to pretend this is about the value of life can easily be discounted by their near-unanimous opposition to gun control, universal health care and nutrition programs.

Why, then, are our forces so much weaker, our anger so readily ignored, our supporters so much more inclined to compromise our rights away?

Why are we not so enraged that we can't be ignored?

For one thing, we are women.  I truly hate to say this, but we have been raised to believe that we should sacrifice for the common good, we should be willing to compromise, even walk away from a fight.

And we have accepted that abortion is a bad thing, to the point where our staunchest defenders are willing to make convoluted arguments about how birth control isn't always used to prevent pregnancies.  We chase around the bizarre false scientific claims, arguing about what a fetus is capable of doing and feeling rather than merely insisting that what is inside of a woman's body is her own business, her own life, and it cannot be made into a separate life with separate rights in any way, shape or form.

We can look to movies and television for a sense of social progress.  It wasn't that long ago that I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of mixed race portrayed without it being a part of the plot.  The same thing has happened with gay couples.  They no longer need to be making a statement about who they are -- they just are.

But when have you ever seen a movie or television program where a character just gets an abortion?  Damn, it happens in real life, why doesn't it ever happen in fiction?  Until it becomes just something that happens, we are likely going to be treating it like a complicated moral dilemma, perpetuating the guilt and shame we have been told we should feel at having to deal with possible pregnancy.  And passing it on to our daughters.

On the bright side, we can go to the fringes and find Amy Schumer, who I saw during a televised stand-up performance outright make a joke about getting an abortion.  I did a double-take, admittedly a little horrified, and then feeling incredibly free. I was in the generation that was liberated by George Carlin's "7 Dirty Words" comedy routine.  And yet, in 2012, we watched, stunned, as a Michigan representative was barred from debate after saying the word "vagina" on the House floor.

We certainly need to change the way we talk about our bodies and about abortion.  But I don't think that that is the main reason we continue to struggle with winning back our freedom.

Abortion is a temporary condition.  This makes it essentially different than sexual orientation or racial heritage.  And, despite the crazy talk by the right wing, nobody wants to have an abortion, any more than a person would want to have a tooth extracted.  Pregnancy is a condition that has a beginning and an end.  We may look forward to or dread being pregnant, we may delight in our pregnancy or it may make us ill.  But it is still not our identity.  So when we decide to have an abortion, that too happens and becomes the past.  If we have not been burdened by the taint of the abortion mythology, we are able to get on with our lives, as with any other medical process.

So when we won the right to reproductive privacy, we got on with our lives, naively assuming the courts had spoken and it was now law.  We didn't look back, and our daughters did not grow up with the fear and dread of an unwanted pregnancy.

And now we must go back to assuming that we are losing that right.

And we don't want to either lose it, or have to fight for it.

That, I believe, is the essence of why we are losing the abortion war.

Racism, Sexism or Cancer?

On March 10, the topic on the new Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore was women and power.  He has a segment called "Keeping it 100" wherein he asks weird questions designed to put guests on the spot, and then decides whether their answers have been totally honest.

One question was "racism, sexism, or cancer" (minute 18)  if you could eliminate two, and the other would proliferate, which two?  And Wilmore helpfully suggested that one of them should be cancer.

Guest Chloe Hilliard had to agree, and then decided that the other would have to be racism, because that would affect generations.  Or some such nonsense.

That, in a nutshell, is why women continue to be abused, neglected, used and mistreated.  We are half of all those other subgroups yet, after generations of enlightenment, we continue to believe that every other interest group is more important than ours.

I wondered how refusing to keep women safe from abusive partners did not affect children and their futures.  Or denial of a living wage, food stamps and health care did not reverberate into the community and the following years.  Equal pay for equal work?  How about privacy and freedom in deciding about whether to get pregnant, or remain pregnant?  Is the humiliation and suffering brought upon women by social policy really less important than that of other groups (which, again, overlap with the group labeled "women").

There have been short periods -- the fight for suffrage, the women's movement of the 70's -- in which we stood up and proclaimed that we are as important as any other issue.  And then we gained a few rights, thanked those with the power to grant them, and went back to being polite and grateful.

I wonder how bad things will have to get for women, how many women shot or beaten, how many women imprisoned for having abortions -- or killed by back alley ones, how many women sick, starving or homeless before we rise up again and say no to the arguments explaining why we should bow to higher priorities.

Time to stop compromising.  Time to stop trying to prove how reasonable we are based on our moderate and rational requests for the right to abortion and birth control.  Time to stop suffering.

This is how I would have answered the question of "racism, sexism, or cancer."  I would have chosen eliminating racism and sexism.  Because cancer cuts across the board; that means that everyone will be invested in doing something about it.  And none of the rest of us should have to sacrifice our individual rights so other groups can enjoy theirs.

What's In It for Me?

Corporations and their right-wing patsies have figured out that the way to win is to make it all about us, even though it's really not.  They make all their pitches about what we have to gain, and more important, what we have to lose, if we don't vote for them.  Those of us who don't vote often believe that it won't make a difference, that both parties are the same, that nobody represents them.  When we Democrats fail, it is often because we waffle about our principles so that we don't offend anyone, or we talk about them too broadly so they become meaningless to people who are struggling with day to day problems.

There are a lot of differences between the parties and the candidates, and they are not abstract.  They reflect the issues we are struggling with every day.  Who gets elected in November is going to determine in very real terms whether our lives will get better or we will just get by.  This election affects dramatically every person of every age.

So here it is, the pitch:

College graduates:  Republicans are opposed to allowing the refinancing of student loans, forcing graduates to carry high-interest rate loans for years.  This means being strapped with debt before they have even been able to make their way in the workforce.  The high interest loans involved are either owned or guaranteed by the federal government, so this is money that our government is making from what should be an investment in a student's future.  Debt from everything from mortgages to credit cards can be refinanced.  Big banks are allowed to borrow at 0 percent from the government.  Why are students forced to pay exorbitant rates on their loans?  Because the Republicans do not want to increase taxes on the millionaires and billionaires that fund their campaigns.

Women:  Oh, so many issues are so critical for the well-being of women in South Carolina.  Our state and federal legislators continue to force votes that would prevent women from accessing affordable birth control.  Preventing women from having family planning will result in not just unplanned pregnancies, but the stress involved with not being able to control decisions about college, jobs and marriage.  It will result in job insecurity.  Men should be outraged that legislators would remove from the family decisions that so directly effect emotional and financial well-being.

Parents:  School choice is the pseudonym for privatizing.  Basically all the many schemes offered provide inadequate financial allotments to most while the wealthy can continue to send their children to the expensive private schools. This false promise also drains money from a public school system that has never been funded adequately here in South Carolina.

Seniors:  Republican fear mongering about Social Security and Medicare is also all about privatization.  Back in the '80's, social security cuts were enabled by the promise of IRA's, which were supposed to herald in a future of wealth and prosperity, but actually just made us all vulnerable to the greed and speculation of Wall Street.  This false promise also allowed corporations to bargain away our pensions.  Cuts to Medicare have and will continue to damage a system that was once a great safety net, forcing seniors to spend more on health care at a time when they should not have to worry about whether they will be able to pay to survive.

So many issues:

Food Stamps:  Too many people are working and not earning a living wage.  Food stamps not only feeds the poor, but keeps dollars flowing in our communities.

Medicaid:  Not wanting everyone to have health insurance is just plain cruel.  But it is also stupid.  Even without the panic over Ebola, the inability to treat a medical problem before a contagion spreads, or a treatable illness becomes terminal, is costly as well as inhumane.  And again, providing health care also provides jobs to our communities.

Minimum Wage:  All the arguments against raising the minimum wage are really about not wanting to raise the wages of those who are making more than minimum.  Because Republicans really do know that a rising tide lifts all boats.  What they really don't want to see is all wages rise in response to the raise in the minimum wage.  Greedy and stupid?  Sure, but these are the politics we have been suffering under since the 80's.  If you are not working for minimum wage, and you're still struggling, you should be fighting -- and voting -- for raising the minimum wage.  And again, raising the minimum wage puts more dollars into the pockets of those who will spend it in their communities.  So if you are a business person, you too should be wanting everyone in your community to be making a living wage.

Voting Rights:  We all know people who won't be voting because they are afraid they will be confronted (and embarrassed) at the polls.  Let's get out there and vote to protect everybody's rights and elect people who will not need to use intimidation to win.

Gun Control:  Those who are most vulnerable in general tend to live in areas where there is more danger of gun violence.  The Second Amendment argument is pure nonsense.  But the mostly republican lawmakers who refuse to make the streets safe for all our citizens need to be voted out of office.  Our police officers should be voting for legislators who support reasonable gun controls; their lives are on the line as well.  And with shootings by officers in the news, we know that the more guns on the streets, the more stressful the job, and the more likely they will have to live (or die) based on a split second decision.

I could go on and on.  There are so many issues that really do affect us every single day.  I urge our candidates to talk to people not about issues that don't seem relevant to them, but to relate the legislation they would pursue to what it means for each of us, every day.  And when we talk to others about the upcoming election, if we talk about how each issue ripples out to affect us all, we might just motivate people to get out and vote.

The Real Perverts

Some twenty years ago, I was with my family in New York City.  It was Christmas season, and we annually celebrated my daughter's December 2 birthday by going to the city for a play, dinner, and of course to see the holiday sights.  She was somewhere around five years old.

We were approaching the line to see the famous window displays at Lord & Taylor.  As we approached I saw there was a commotion; some yelling on the sidewalk at what looked to be a street vendor.  As I got closer my mouth fell open in horror.  It was a woman standing by a table with a huge poster depicting a woman in full hideous, heart-wrenching bondage.  As I attempted to get my small child away from this scene I did yell something to the effect that she should be ashamed of herself, which of course, was the kind of attention she was seeking.

The purpose of this display was to point out to the public the abuses of pornography.  I would have been fine with that intent and her first amendment right to such a protest.  But it was abhorrent that she chose to do this where children were passing.  To my mind, she was as much a part of the pornographic culture as what she claimed she was protesting, but in a more deceitful and emotionally disturbed way.

This is what I see happening with all the nation's focus on abortion.  It has nothing at all to do with protecting life.  There is in fact an inverse relationship of concern about life before birth to life after birth.  Those who most loudly support abortion bans are the least likely to want to care for the pregnant woman herself, much less the newly born infant.  Proof of this is the lack of support for health and nutrition programs, and our pathetic infant mortality rate, the shame of civilized nations.

If it is not about protecting life, what is the anti-abortion movement about?  For one thing, it is control.  It is forcing women who have unprotected sex to lose control over their bodies and their lives.  And the anti-contraception movement is about forcing women to not have protected sex, further losing control of their lives.

And the reason for the vehemence of the supporters of this cruel and ignorant cause has more to do with voyeurism and exhibitionism than just about anything else.  Imagine spending as much time obsessing about sex and a woman's body as our legislators have done.  It would be a diagnosable condition if the false moral imperatives were not celebrated as "Christian values."  The combination of the positive and negative attention that this crusade engenders is no less than thrilling to these self-appointed arbiters of a woman's morality.  And the ironic cherry atop this disgusting sundae (if you will...) is the legitimacy that it gives to the prurience of the crusader.

So, much as the woman who masqueraded her fascination for pornography as a protest, our anti-abortion protesters focus their lives, and their political campaigns, around matters of a woman's body.  Creepy?  You bet.  And isn't it time we saw these really dysfunctional people for what they are?
  

More About Bicyling and Pregnancy

Yesterday I wrote about the overreaching South Carolina Representative Wendy Nanney's idiotic bill which would require bicyclists and moped owners to get licensed and insured (with the exception of those expendables who are under 15), and her quick about-face after protestations by the cycling association.

It occurs to me that I may have sounded snarky (moi?!) in reference to bicyclists.  That was not at all my intent.  In fact, I believe that we need to make all our streets safe for cyclists.  Good for people, good for the environment.  I have driven too many times, half-awake, in the early morning, swerving to avoid a bicyclist at the last minute, not because they were not riding safely, but because of narrow roads where cars and bicyclers were forced to share too little space.

But the fact is, it is easier for those like Nanney to make laws fattening the pockets of industry, forcing new rules, paperwork and cost on her constituents, creating greater government bureaucracy, and with absolutely no contribution to insuring the safety and well-being of the public.  Easier than making sure that every new and repaved road has safe walking and bicycling lanes.

This is the way it is also for her fight against pregnant women.  Far easier, and apparently more satisfying, to make laws to force a woman to be pregnant than to ensure a better life for women.  The rate of teen pregnancies could be lowered by better education -- not just sex education, but an education that brings hope to teens for a good future.  Family planning, including contraception, would go a long way to provide families with financial and emotional security, so that wanted children will grow healthy.  Guaranteed health care and nutrition may eliminate the need for some of those twenty week abortions, and certainly reduce the rate of infant mortality -- a statistic of which Nanney should be embarrassed.

But, as the saying goes, when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.  And our representatives here in South Carolina, mostly see their job as making laws to make us do stuff that won't make our lives any better.  Getting a license to ride a bike on streets that aren't safe won't make cyclists any safer.  Making children and women get pregnant and stay that way rather than providing good education and health care is also the cheap way out.  And I mean cheap in the sense of quality as well as cost.

So my apologies to any cyclist that may have been offended yesterday.  It may not appear so at first glance, but you have a lot in common with those girls and women who have come under fire from our fierce and fanatical legislators.  And I will fight for your right to better roads if you will fight for a woman's right to reproductive health care.

    

In Honor Of Woman's History Month...

In honor of Woman's History Month, our legislators are working on bills that will take South Carolina back to 1960:

It's an era that's never been too far from our hearts and minds.  So go ahead and give your legislator a call as he gets ready to vote on bills that will keep you barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.

A Planned Parenthood

For better or worse, much of my life has been a tight squeeze financially.  So I have learned to stretch a dollar pretty much till I could see through it.  That includes giving by volunteering rather than with cash.

There are two exceptions to that rule.  The first is the American Civil Liberties Union, for which I maybe don't donate a lot, but I do donate annually.  I figure, without the ACLU, we would most likely be, well, Russia.

The other exception is Planned Parenthood.  This group, like me, knows how to stretch a dollar, but unlike me, they are under constant attack from (as Jim DeMint likes to say) enemies of freedom.  Like ACORN, Planned Parenthood provides services to those who would do without.  And like ACORN, Planned Parenthood's service to the underserved is a great opportunity for the wealthy and powerful.  By attacking those who help the underserved, they are able to keep the focus off their own greedy schemes.

Right now, this very weekend, the Republican House added to their agenda of evil an anti-contraception provision to their already Grinchy funding bill.

Here in South Carolina, each year we are under attack by the truly anti-life right wing in our state legislature, with bills restricting doctors who perform women's services, redefining "life" in ever more absurd ways in order to restrict abortion, and attempting to prohibit access to contraception.

And of course, under attack throughout the country, is Planned Parenthood.

Which is why I am asking you all to do something I rarely do:  donate.

Not as easy as you think.  If you go to the Planned Parenthood website and click on "Donate" you may end up giving to the national organization, in which case our own center will get a mere cut.  In order to donate fully to our own hard-working South Carolina branch this is what you need to do:

1.  Follow this link:  http://www.plannedparenthood.org/health-systems/

2.  On the top right, click on "Donate."

3.  On the right, where it says you can "Give to a specific local affiliate, click here."

4.  At the top where it says Organization, scroll down and select "SC" and "Planned Parenthood Health Systems, Inc."

5.  Be as generous as you can.

After all, doesn't every child deserve a planned parenthood?

Our Freedom Is Your Freedom

I believe that one of the reasons the war against women's reproductive health care and privacy has been allowed to creep forward over the decades is that women are, after all, members of every other civil rights group.  We fight for the rights of workers, of African Americans, of the LGBT community.

But it is time that we ask our fellow freedom fighters to join in our struggle.  Because our struggle is also one of the right to equal rights, to freedom from government surveillance and control, the right to privacy, the right to health care, education and a good job.

When a woman is unable to afford or obtain contraception and a pregnancy is the result, a teenager drops out of school, a young adult is unable to go to college, a working woman becomes unemployed.  A family is disrupted, emotionally and economically.

The right to abortion became the law of the land, just as contraception is legal, because we do not have a militaristic, religious extremist government.

When laws are passed that force a doctor to provide a woman with false information, when teachers are made to provide false health information, when women are required to have unwanted medical procedures, when laws are created to force health care clinics to close their doors due to impossible and unreasonable restrictions, we need to join together against those forces.

When a woman is prevented from access to affordable contraception and abortion services, that woman's economic future is in jeopardy.  The well-being of her family is at risk.

This is not about being pro-life.  Those who are fighting to deny women their reproductive freedom are those who are also fighting to prevent funding for health and nutrition programs.  They are the same people who oppose any gun control.  They have no moral opposition to going to war.

A father, a husband, a son, a friend, all should be united against a government that would shame and control its women because they have the capacity to become pregnant.  If you don't agree with abortion or contraception, you should fight more than ever for the money wasted on restrictions on women to go to programs that provide a better life.  You should nonetheless understand that whatever your position on abortion and contraception, this is a choice that just doesn't belong in the halls of Congress or state legislatures.

When our government is allowed to legislate control of women's bodies, the rights to freedom and privacy of all of us is attacked.

Which Vice Would You Ban?

I am wary of the great strides the Obama administration has taken in creating national electronic medical records.  On the one hand, it will make it easier to coordinate treatment when several doctors and specialties are involved.  And of course we won't have to rely on someone correctly decrypting a physician's illegible notes.  On the other hand, if you follow the money here, this enormous invasion of privacy will at some point walk us right into the maw of the insurance industry.

No pre-existing condition, maybe.  But higher premiums if you cross a line someone involved in your health care has drawn in the sand, absolutely.

It chills me to hear my liberal friends support penalties for obesity (my own particular vice).  And let me just add that I was also opposed to higher premiums for smokers.  Raise taxes on cigarettes?  Okay.  But charging an individual more for health care because of a life style vice is the ultimate in corporate control.

When we start to agree to forcing people to share health information (and let's face it, you can't go to your doctor and refuse to sign their disclosure agreement, at the very least because you will be unable to get insurance reimbursement if you don't sign away your right to patient confidentiality), we are opening ourselves up to abuses from all sides.

I have said here before that I would be much happier if Michelle Obama fought harder for living wages and working conditions that allowed parents to be with and better care for their children than by fighting that concept called "obesity".  Nice that she can go out to her garden with some elementary school class and model nutrition.  Harder for a mom who works full time and then has to schlep the kids to after school activities.  Not to mention a parent that works full-time and still can't afford (or have time to cook) healthy meals.

Then there is the issue of which vices are currently scorned. Mike Bloomberg wants to control soda size as well as guns.  We have laws that force us to wear seat belts in our very own cars but cells phones on the road are still okay.

And we should know by now that the vices that are going to be most legislated are those that most affect women.  Want to carry a gun into a bar here in South Carolina?  No problem.  After all, freedom is an important concept here.  But contraceptive freedom?  Suddenly we have caretakers who are going to oversee our sexual activity, and the consequences.

Yes, this is a rant.  There are times when I communicate more rationally, but today I am frustrated and just feel the need to to go on about all the things that don't make sense, and that invade our privacy, and those that proselytize and legislate based on their own personal values.

Here is where I draw my line regarding who's free to do what:  your freedom ends where my safety and comfort begin.  You want to drive without a seat belt, it may be literally your funeral, but it's not my business.  I eat too much, but there are ways my life is much healthier than yours that nobody asks about in the doctor's office.  Don't speed on roads I am driving on, and don't bring your gun out to any public place.

And when I see my doctor, I want to talk to her knowing she is not merely complying with reporting requirements; in fact, our appointments would be more productive without all the now required data gathering.  And it does not matter how well-intentioned national electronic medial records may be, it is a concept that flies in the face of all we know about confidentiality and privacy.  And it will come back to haunt us, whatever our vice.

Nikki's Conscience

Our governor here in South Carolina is no friend of the Affordable Care Act.  She has been paid good money to make absolutely sure that her good friends in the insurance industry do not have to follow federal law.

Last year, she took a million of our hard-earned tax dollars from the federal government and instructed her exploratory committee to find out how to reject the Medicaid expansion.  That's right, the part that would insure lots of poor and currently uninsured South Carolinians, with nearly 100% government funding.  And here we thought Nikki was able to spot a bargain.

Now her legislative buddies are working to pretty much make the whole Affordable Care Act illegal in this parallel universe of South Carolina.  Nullification acts abound this second term of the Obama administration, and it's not hard to cut and paste:  federal health care regulations, gun laws, National Defense Authorization Act.  There is absolutely nothing our federal government can attempt to do to protect us that Nikki and her gang aren't trying to strike down.

In a very lovely letter on quite tasteful and expensive stationery, at taxpayer expense, Nikki wrote back in response to a petition I signed regarding a woman's right to contraceptive choice.  In the tone of a very patient first grade teacher, she explained how there are times when we have to "distinguish between our ability to make decisions about our own health and our ability to make someone else pay for the effects of those decisions."

I don't know.  You might want to read that one over again because my head's still spinning from it.

Nikki -- and I know you don't mind me calling you Nikki because your letter indicates that we are on a first-name basis -- there are whole bunches of reasons why this is pure bullshit.  You may never have had to worry about life and liberty, but there are many of us -- in fact, many who live right here in the state you govern -- who have to worry about those rights.  The right to vote, the right to housing, the right to be able to care for ourselves and our families come to mind.

While your legislators are trying to make sure every pregnancy comes to term, neither you nor they are concerned about what happens to the woman, her child, or her family after birth.  You know, and I know, that this "matter of faith" is an excuse.  When it comes to infant mortality, you are right up there making sure nothing is done about it.

The employers whose rights you defend so shamelessly take our tax dollars, and their conscience really doesn't dictate whether those tax dollars come from saints or sinners, or whether our children have to go to failing schools because more taxes for public schools is where you draw your line.

When our government makes laws, it is not up to me, or you, or your friends in church and business to decide which ones you will follow.  Just as a church or business cannot refuse to serve someone because they are black, or gay, or Hispanic, they cannot pick and choose what services they provide to women.

Shame that a woman in public office, who has been fortunate in her life, has no conscience at all when it comes to assuring that all women have the same rights to life and liberty that she has truly enjoyed.

One final note about your letter.  Perhaps if you did your job in truly good conscience, you would not need to close with "God bless," which sounds a little too much like wishful thinking. 

When Tim Scott's Freedom Is Not Our Freedom

The U. S. House Representative for SC District 1, who is not and never has been my representative, although I live in that district, has a peculiar view of freedom.

For example, he believes that women should not have the freedom to access contraceptive care, but that employees should have the freedom to not provide this coverage when the law requires it.

He calls it "conscience."

I call it bullshit.

When a religious institution feels comfortable taking my tax dollars, which I do not have the freedom to withhold from said groups, regardless of my conscience, the very least obligation they should have is to follow the law.  If their conscience causes angst, they can refuse the federal dollars.  They can also stop pretending they should be tax-exempt.

Tim Scott passionately professes his belief in "life."  That, too, is bullshit.  Jesus, neither Scott's nor anyone else's, would never condone automatic weapons (or war, for that matter).  When innocents are getting gunned down in a classroom or a movie theater, Scott should have more important things on his "conscience" than whether or not a woman should be allowed free contraceptives.

This hypocrisy would puzzle me more if it didn't so much follow the money.  The National Rifle Association has incredible power in this country, and incredibly deep pockets.  So it is no surprise that when Scott "prays" on issues, gun control provokes as resounding a "no" from God as does contraception.

No disrespect to God, however.  Because when Tim Scott prays, he may think he is hearing God's voice, but in fact he is hearing answers that are easy on his ears.  The voice he actually hears, I believe, is that of Jim DeMint.

I have yet to hear of a vote cast by Tim Scott that he has not only agonized over, but then voted against what his hero in the Tea Party has dictated.

And so freedom, for Tim Scott, is the freedom to hear whatever voices he chooses to hear, and to vote "for life" when it is convenient, and anti-life when the NRA and Jim DeMint tell him to.

Shame on you, Tim Scott.

Contraception and Jobs

The republican plan to protect "our" freedom is moving along quite nicely.  Wonder that dems don't get it.


Once the Supremes determined that corporations are people, it became obvious whose freedoms the right wingnuts were fighting for.  Obviously.  Churches are people.  Not the church members, just the churches.  Hospitals are people.  Not, of course, the nurses, doctors and patients therein, just the hospitals.


So we want to protect their individual freedoms:  the freedom to pay low wages, the freedom to cut an employee's benefits, the freedom to charge anyone any amount for anything, the freedom to cut government services so that they might have the biggest share of the consumer-and-profit pie possible, the freedom to not have to pay taxes.


These, of course, are the job creators.  Much as their God, they should be all powerful.  Because the republican right wing, i.e. the republican party, are all about jobs.  Just ask them.  Which is why they are determined to outlaw contraception.


Now, a lot of people are confused about this.  How does preventing women from using contraception help with creating jobs.  Simple.


When you (or your wife, daughter, sister, mother) no longer have access to birth control, you are more likely to get pregnant.  Of course, since birth control is now illegal, abortion would also be banned, that leaves women (and girls) with a couple of options:  enforced pregnancy and childbirth, and illegal abortion with risk of death.


This is where the jobs part comes in.  Not only will there be thousands of job openings when women have to drop out of the workforce, there will also be openings resulting from women dying from illegal abortions.


And that is just the way God and the Republican Party have planned it.