Opposition to abortion is rooted in the belief that a "human being" is present from the moment of conception. This is not a belief held by all religions or all religious people or of any scientific (fact-based not faith-based) validity. It has been amplified by right-wing politicians and political groups most of whom do not give a rat's rear end for belief but whose deep-seated misogyny tells them that Kirche, Kuche, und viele Kinder is a good way to keep uppity women from infringing on their male "rights." To the former, I say, do not have an abortion and may your god go with you.. I have nothing but contempt for the latter.
For Christians to claim that all life is sacred to God is kind of weird, seeing as how He told the Israelites to rip open the pregnant women of Samaria and dash the children to pieces. But then, Samaria had rejected Him, so I guess they were asking for it.
I’m a big admirer of clairvoyance, but I have to ask, how, exactly, does an eighteen year old girl seeking to terminate a pregnancy equate to an “uppity woman infringing on male ‘rights’”?
I suppose there are men that actually think in these terms, but I have to say, the next one that I meet will be the first.
I realize that polling data may differ from my own personal experience, but virtually every man (particularly younger men) that I have ever known that has a strong opinion on this matter has vehemently indicated SUPPORT for legal abortion, not opposition to it. The obvious reason for this is their desire to be absolved of any potential financial responsibility that could ensue should they knock up a girlfriend, but it’s also that most of them just aren’t into the whole “life is precious” humanism that underpins the anti-abortion philosophy. (This also partially explains why, contrary to what is commonly purported, the majority of people who are active in the pro-life movement are women).
As far as the claim that there are multitudes of men that sit around obsessing over the goal of having their DNA being loosed upon the world, I don’t doubt that they’re out there, but….
It's not so much a conscious thought of "I have a right to procreate and to control the means of that procreation" as a sense of entitlement that many men have that they are the superior being and women are inferior and that's just how it is and has always been. Religion and social tradition have taught them that and they have internalized it to the point that seeing women as equal and autonomous beings with the right to make their own decisions is nonsensical. Men like that don't think of it as controlling so much as being caring and protective of this lesser being that doesn't have the capacity to understand what is in its own best interest. There are far more of these men out there than one may realize living in our fairly liberal Northern Illinois society. Living in the southern US was a real eye-opener. My husband and I both come from a conservative religious background that minimalized the ability of women discern the Scriptures and have their own opinions on faith and service. We both rebelled against that - my family agreed and also left that faith tradition but his family did not. To his dying day my FIL thought it was "cute" that our churches had female pastors but that is was clearly not right with God.
Thanks, this sheds light. I said that I didn’t doubt that this sort of men existed, and they’re clearly much more ubiquitous in the southern Bible Belt culture.
There is also the philosophical debate over what constitutes consciousness and/or sentience. Which leads into the discussion of when human rights attach and whether those rights are subordinate to the mother's rights.
While this issue seems perfectly clear for newborns, regardless of how premature, it is undefined in philosophy. There is also significant legal incongruity with regard to prenatal humanity, both civil and criminal, when a pregnant woman is killed or injured causing the loss of the pregnancy.
It’s not a legal incongruity to permit abortion and punish a third party’s termination of a woman’s pregnancy against her wishes. Both positions recognize that it’s the woman’s decision what happens to her body before the fetus is viable.
I share your approval of Newsom's approach and social media strategy. I also agree Democrats should be getting off the "go high" high horse. It may have been a noble goal 10 years ago, but has produced disastrous results. It has been like a high school debate team member trying to use logical arguments supported by facts and statistics while being beaten up by the bully in the parking lot. At some point a kick in the balls is an appropriate and necessary response, moral high ground be damned. Seeing the rankled response from the right wing media is very satisfying.
On the reproductive rights motivation question, I answered no. I think the underlying drive is for control more generally, not necessarily against sex for pleasure, although it could be part of it. Abortion opponents are fine with it for older married couples (as far as I can tell), as an example. I think it falls under the "you don't tell *us* what to do, we tell *you* what to do" umbrella of many of their policy goals, together with displaying the ten commandments in schools, book bans, etc.
It was never a noble goal, it was flat out moronic. In election after election, the candidate who was the dirtiest in campaigning almost always won, because negative campaigns are extremely effective!
Michelle Obama's statement was one of the stupidest things ever uttered!
The problem is that under the current political climate, it's not a coherent political strategy. It's not entirely negative. Liberals have a wide variety of different views and are much more accepting of divergence than conservatives. The problem is political infighting over what a coherent political strategy should include. Look at what is happening in New York City, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. I also keep thinking about the mess created by Democrats at the 1968 Democratic convention. 1968 and 1972 were easy for Nixon. Then CREEP had to mess it up for him. Maybe the Democrats do need to go low to beat back the MAGA tide. I have been a staunch advocate of going after Trump more strongly for years. But even more than that, Democrats need to decide where they are headed. They to do it together. Did they learn anything from 2020? Even with the mess over dropping Biden late from the ticket and the weakness of Harris as a candidate, they made it competitive. This also included the failure of many liberals and independents to bother voting over what they saw as the failures of Biden policy. So Trump is beatable. So are other Republicans. The question is whether or not Democrats can unite to do it. And whatever your political sensibilities might be, socialism won't cut it. Even a lot of Democrats won't buy in.
What a relief! After 2 weeks of having no idea what the visual jokes even meant, I was torn among 3 outstanding ones! My choice turned out to be not so popular.....but I think Uncle Duke is a treasure!:-)
EZ, i know you don't control this - but pls keep the pressure on substack to upgrade VQotW polling. they need to get with the times - their method is so 20-teens ... or 20-oughts. perhaps you could get other substackers to join you in this campaign. and you might also consider taking a poll of your readers.
Random thought having been exposed to a couple opinion polls lately -- I wonder if ranked choice voting were to appear in all sorts of polls and questionnaires whether it would increase support for it's use in elections. I'd be a fan.
I think there is a segment of abortion opponents who don't want people to have sex outside of marriage. And they believe that pregnancy is an excellent punishment for having sex outside of marriage.
I mostly agree with that. The real issue is over life. Only women can have babies. It's simply a fact. I often wonder how the views of men might change if they were capable of having babies after sex. In addition, women are still considered the primary caregivers of the young. They are the ones that can suckle infants. Much of society still sees them as primarily responsible for raising them. So it might be a control thing. But don't discount how society still sees things after children are born. What if government was actually serious about men not simply Injecting sperm and then making for the hills? What if more men had to actually raise them under the fear of penalty for not doing so? Please, I don't want anyone lecturing me on the laws in place for child support and other items. My father left when I was ten years old and it was a constant battle getting my father to help out.
You underline a point of monumental importance here. Last week, in response to another commenter, Eric wrote “I agree that it’s generally better for a child to have two parents in the home”. I thought that this phrasing amounted to a disturbingly cavalier soft pedal of an essential and urgent issue, kind of like saying, “I think that it’s generally better to feed, clothe and shelter your kids rather than making them roam the streets panhandling and stealing in order to provide for themselves”. Or, “I agree that it’s generally better to make sure that children are securely fastened into their seats when riding in cars”. Or, “On the whole, I think it’s best not to let children play with loaded firearms”.
The almost complete normalization of out-of-wedlock childbirth, and the attendant dissolution of the traditional family unit is one of the great disgraces of our time. It amounts to acceptance of the deliberate crippling of children. The devastating social consequences of endemic out-of-wedlock childbirth (mental illness, sexual abuse, drug abuse, suicide, crushing, cyclical poverty) are well known, yet there has been a conscious effort over the last sixty years by political progressives to minimize, if not outright ignore all of this, presumably out of a misguided sense of not wanting to come across as too judgemental.
Or rather, they minimize and ignore when it comes to evaluating the issue at a societal level, but mysteriously seem to see things differently when it is confined to the remit of their own personal lives. One not particularly well kept secret is that the academics and professional class that have spent the last six decades dismissing the vital importance of fathers and marriage in regard to the upbringing of children, are not, as it turns out, so cavalier when it comes to having children of their own, or the values that they instill in them. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is so rare among highly educated professionals that is barely a blip on the radar screen. Their kids are brought up accordingly, and are taught that having children outside of marriage is a nonstarter, because they are fully aware of the crippling effects that it entails. Yet they have spent sixty plus years granting approbation to this practice, which has resulted in the real economic divide that rents our culture, that between the upwardly mobile and economically regressed. The social scientist Charles Murray put it succinctly: the problem with elites is that they do not preach what they practice.
I dislike stereotypes. I am the product of a mostly fatherless family. I think I turned out mostly okay. I do agree that given a choice, I would rather see two parent families- as long as the two are getting along and it is not an abusive situation. I don’t want to stray far from my main point. Women see it as mostly a control issue, which for centuries has been mostly true. It’s not as true as it used to be. There are actually women that choose to be single parents, especially if they don’t like their partners or have any faith in their parenting abilities. I have a sister that was a single parent and raised a wonderful daughter. Her reason was professional. She was an officer and he was a noncm which is a military no no. Sex between men and women is, for the most part, easy and enjoyable for men. They have the knowledge they can’t get pregnant. A good deal of society still sees women as primary caregivers. It would be nice if more men would take responsibility for what they did, at least minimally on the financial end. Attempting to be fathers would be even better. After age 10, I rarely saw mine until adulthood. He raised a second family and I actually have great relationships with my stepmom and stepsiblings. But it still comes down to too many men not taking responsibility in any way. That was my point. If there were better ways of enforcing this, might it change male views on abortive?
Yes, it would be nice if more men would take responsibility for what they did, and attempt to be good fathers. And there’s nothing that retreats more from those goals than to say that marriage is strictly optional, and isn’t really all that intrinsic to the healthy upbringing of a child (not for the least of reasons being that it is a patently false claim that has yielded catastrophic social costs).
Two weeks ago, Eric challenged MAGA minded folks to identify when the exact “golden age” of American greatness was that they were yearning to turn the clock back to. I declined to offer any suggestions, in part because I’m not a Trump supporter, but more because the question seemed like a kind of trap custom tailored to elicit responses that would sound like desperate straw grasping by the hopelessly quaint (Most of the suggestions that appeared in the comments were of the mocking variety, implying that any and all cultural changes are unqualified improvements in life that have lifted us up out of the dark ages). I will, however, offer this: it would be nice (not to mention healthier) if we could go back the the antiquated old social more that held that, if you were a man or a boy that impregnated a woman or a girl, and you did not want to be completely ostracized by friends and family and regarded as loathsome scum, you married her.
I like your ironic wording. Antiquated? I don't know what that means. It is often used in a negative sense, meaning old-fashioned and no longer utile. It assumes that anything newer is better. I don't make that assumption and it doesn't sound like you do, either.
Another rotten (in my opinion) rebranding choice was when the inspiringly-named blood donation collection organization, LifeSource, a few years ago decided to instead call itself Vitalant, which sounds like an energy supplement or a caped superhero. Huh?
I don't quite count Vitalant as spam, because blood donation is indeed vital. And because donating is other-directed rather than (usually) for one's own benefit, it can be helpful to get a little extra motivation when a new drive is coming up.
But even so, yes, Vitalant can be irritatingly over-eager. I've been called -- "Our records show that it's been a while since your last donation" -- when I literally had donated the day before!
I consider it spam because it's Robo calls (even though it's always "Jared from Vitalant" and they have a new number each time they contact me. But yes, I still give blood as soon as X weeks are up and I'm able to again.
Newsom's social media posts have been the highlight of the last week for me. I fall easily into a doom and gloom mentality when it comes to the current regime, GCN's posts have helped keep me out of the depths.
Admittedly I think Gavin Newsom's primary motivation is setting himself up to run for president, but the important thing is, he--or his Twitter writers--are hilarious. Geez, if he's that funny in person at debates, he'll be a tough competitor despite all the problems people can point at in California.
I think that that motivation is a noble one, and would have been nice if he had been stricken by it two or six years ago. With his impeccable political cunning, debating expertise, charm, charisma and pretty-boy movie star good looks (which shouldn’t necessarily be important factors, but are) Newsom has always seemed an obvious choice to me for candidacy. I grew weary of hearing defeatist minded Democrats who would say things like, “Oh, he’s the governor of California, the Republicans will make mincemeat out of him because of that! They’ll rip him to shreds and paint him as a whack job radical, he’d never have a chance”, etc. (Oddly, none of these people seemed to have any objection to shoehorning Harris into the nomination at the eleventh hour, as if she were more likely to defeat Trump).
But... how in the world does Newsome answer critics who will quickly point out that there has been a veritable flood of both people and businesses out of California during his tenure as chief executive, despite it being perhaps some of the most beautiful weather and scenery in the country? People have unquestionably been voting with their feet that they do not like what has become of California. An attack ad claiming that Newsome will want to do to the rest of the us what he has done to California would be powerful.
Newsom's answer is simple, California has gone from the fifth largest economy on Earth & has passed the entire country of Germany to become the fourth largest economy on Earth!
But Garry - that just seems to highlight the fact that, despite a booming economy, people and businesses are fleeing California by the hundreds of thousands. People are voting with their feet and Newsome is the person most accountable for that as the chief executive. And do you believe it is simply just a big coincidence that the same is true for bright blue New York and Illinois??
It would be powerful, but also manageable. Population actually increased in Cali the last couple years. Illinois as well. Yes, immigration, I know, but there are other factors contributing to population shifts beyond the Fox News version, such as birth rates, death rates, climate, and remote work opportunities. Regardless, think about the last few POTUS. How many were voted in based on their past records? It has been more about "lesser of two evils", "voting against the other person", or proposed visions such as "Hope and Change" or "MAGA".
Hi Ted - yes indeed, a massive influx of many millions of illegal immigrants with the overwhelming majority flooding to blue states and particularly large blue cities for all the welcoming free benefits. This was the end game of the Democrat open borders to prop up population for the census to maintain greater Congressional representation. And the influx of this massive illegal immigration has indeed propped up population in Illinois and california. But, I digress. While many people do vote on policy differences such as immigration, taxation, etc, I think you are right that many people are either inclined toward or away from a candidate by their personna and how successfully their respective campaigns can market them to the public. I'm very much looking forward to 2028 when people who love or hate Trump will not be voting on that basis, but hopefully more so on policies. We'll see. Have a great day!
the same can pretty much be said for pritzker as for newsom [other than the weather & the magnitude of the scenery] - 'if you're so good & IL is so great, why has IL lost population every year you've been in office?'
note, i acknowledge that decline trend began before pritzker took office - but that's even more damning of Dem party governance of IL.
Agreed, but I believe the exodus, which included me and my wife upon retirement, certainly accelerated during Pritzker's time in office. That and all the other financial metrics that reveal Illinois to be a basket case makes it incredible to think that people in Illinois truly think Pritzker has any credibility whatsoever as a Presidential candidate. He certainly is not going to wow with the way he presents himself. As a conservative, I believe the strongest candidates Democrats could put forth in 2028 are headlined by Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear and or Gretchen Whitmer. But at this point I doubt that the Mamdani-socialist wing of the party would be amenable with such a mainstream candidate. (And I personally strongly favor Nikki Haley as the GOP candidate, but I fear it is likely to be Vance who I see as a weaker candidate.)
interesting. i always enjoy reading your comments, even when i disagree.
and i may disagree on this one. like you i waved good-bye to Chgo & IL shortly after retirement. now living in Mich. while i believe whitmer would be a strong candidate to win the Dem nomination for POTUS, i doubt she could win a genl election. misogyny, misrepresentation & lies by residual post-trump MAGA would likely doom her candidacy.
my pick for Dems strongest candidate - rahm emanuel. he could go toe-to-toe with any Repub candidate, he's amoral [like most of the Repub likelies, the ones who aren't immoral] - and he's actually well-qualified for the position.
he'd have trouble attracting and motivating the Dems' far left, a not insignificant impediment to getting the Dem nomination.
but i'm addressing his ability to win the gen'l election, not to get the nomination.
Rahm is indeed the ultimate politician, but I believe the stain of the tapes from the Laquan McDonald shooting would continue to Hound him and be a Flashpoint for both blacks and the hard left within the Democratic party. Whitmer does indeed have some baggage, but as much as I despise identity politics, there will be a significant percentage of vote that goes to a female running to be the first female President. She's articulate and presents herself well, and from my side of the political fence I would see her as a very formidable candidate. Josh Shapiro would be Dynamite although the hard left in the Democratic Party would not tolerate anyone friendly to Israel, let alone a Jew. Andy Bashear would be very Bill Clintonesqe in that he is arelatively unknown Centrist from a small state and I believe would be perhaps the strongest Democratic candidate at least at this point, but again, I believe the Democratic activists who vote in primaries have moved too far left for a Centrist candidate. I believe Haley would be the strongest candidate with a clear path to winning in 2028, but I know that many of the magazines are unforgiving of her challenge to Trump in the primary and that he has not reconciled with her. So we will see - the midterms are going to come first and very interesting times for us political junkies, right?
Having seen him in debates and most recently in podcasts, I find him lame, disingenuous, and weaselly. He is particularly challenged when he tries to address his own policy and position reversals. Many of his podcast appearances are clearly aimed at making him look more centrist. This tack may be useful in positioning himself as the best candidate to appeal to both the centrists and the fringe lefties.
But while very humorous, his attack ads are a risk, in my view. Some who would vote for him but have no sense of humor (and there are some Dems in that camp) might not. For now, I want him to continue those ads because they so aggravate the Fox News folks - and Trump - and they just make my day! Then Newsom will just have to figure out if running for president is what he really wants to do. Maybe he and Colbert could get together. . .
The fundamental problem in fighting Trump and his minions is the Democrats don’t have a strong leader who stands out and will garner the public’s attention.
I believe in retrospect he did a pretty good job as President, but unfortunately today the Democratic party would never nominate someone as much of a centrist as he was.
I would hardly call President Clinton a centrist. Despite the fact that he respected a woman’s right to choose, and that he nominated women to important positions in government, his campaign to end welfare as we know it was definitely right wing and reactionary. Same with his “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” which kept LGBTQ+ people in the closet.
I like the Newsom posts overall. It both highlights Trump foolishness, and makes Newsom appear less elitist. Ultimately the dems need a solid working class agenda behind their newly found fight. I still dislike the TACO thing, however. Telling someone with that power and temperament they always chicken out isn't wise. At a time when we want him to back off, it only encourages.
As frightening as Trump 2028 sounds, Vance may be worse. Younger, slicker, even more nationalist. There's a good recent Ezra Klein podcast about recent Vance speeches, Yoram Hazony, and the thought process behind "The Virtue of Nationalism". The entire movement needs to be exposed as irrational, not just focusing on Trump antics.
Just a reminder my friend that Trump had maintained sanctions in place that had prevented completion of Putin's cherished Nordstream II pipeline. Sadly, Biden removed those sanctions his very first week in office allowing completion of the pipeline and enabled Russian sale of gas to Europe.
That was a failed attempt to get Russia integrated into the world's economy & prevent them for starting any wars. Obviously it failed as Putin is both insane & a megalomaniac determined to reconstitute the Soviet Union, which that ex-KGB agent considers to be paradise on Earth!
Garry - going back to our original discussion on newsom's governance of california, did you happen to see the news report on the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond announcing they are completely exiting California and explicitly blaming it on a very inhospitable business client there? I believe that Newsom is going to have difficulty explaining precisely that type of thing under his term.
He's full of shit. My guess is that Californians were just not buying anything at his stores there for some reason. Maybe they didn't like the selection. I know I didn't like the prices at the one I went into that was in Wilmette, they were much higher than necessary! Plus the layout of the store was maddening!
Hey Garry - it is not just Bed Bath and Beyond. Since Newsome became governor in 2019, over 25% of all business relocations nationally have been businesses leaving California. The leading state for relocation of this businesses has been bright red Texas. California finances are in a very perilous state because of the loss of business and individual tax revenues, and I don't know how Newsom can purport to lead the US when this is what has happened to California under his watch. (Pritzker and Illinois fall into the same category on a somewhat lesser scale, and the same applies to his standing as a potential presidential candidate.) Happy Friday!
Here is what AI had to say about how Vance became a rich person who was influenced and trained by others: "Political and Financial Support: (Peter) Thiel has been a significant benefactor for Vance's political ambitions, donating $15 million to Vance's Ohio Senate campaign. Thiel also reportedly helped Vance connect with former president Trump." I never see anything about Peter Thiel, and he has been working with Vance for a very long time. He is a true force for us to worry about. Also, Vance's wife - once a Democrat - apparently sensed real possibilities in this southern Ohioan (perhaps once he wrote the book and made money?) I always wonder how she can countenance the ugliness of the Trump administration enough that she is supportive of her husband learning how to be obnoxious and a total suck-up to this egregious human being who is in the role of president of the USA. She is an immigrant - how can she live with the policies of this administration? And while she is well-educated, she is a person of color. Few Republican leaders can abide those who are not like them. I guess it's greed or preservation or she got past the idea of sleeping with the enemy. I had better stop there.
Although I think Trump was just pulling our chain on his “no elections in wartime” remark, I do seem to recall that there was an election in 1944, when a certain amount of war was going on. 1864, too, which may be more germane.
Michelle Obama was right! During the erudite, gracious and democratic Obama years. But now it's time to fight back in the language the MAGAs seem to understand.
She was never right, it was wrong & stupid then, as it is now & will always be. The most negative ad running candidate almost always wins by dirtying up his/her opponent!
As the first lady, not a candidate, I thought it was a very appropriate thing for her to say as it fit with her personality. Negative campaigning does work (unfortunately) but *candidates* don't typically support it, they just let the campaign staffers use it.
One of the things that surprises me is the extent to which many people view Trump as a “strong” leader or speak of “strength” as one of his qualities. Trump’s “strength” is no different from the “strength” of an adolescent teenage boy acting the bully on the school playground. It is childish bravado, not strength. And we all have experience with what happens to that kind of bravado when someone who is being picked on actually stands up to the schoolyard bully. The bully gets his ass kicked. If Trump continues in this vein, which he surely will, eventually there will be a country that stands up to his bullying swagger, and then things will get very dangerous indeed.
What seems weird to me is that there is a significant percentage of the population that view Trump’s adolescent bullying bravado as strength.
Or, put another way, it’s the same as the “strength” of a professional wrestler who wields maximum braggadocio whilst being interviewed by Mean Gene Okerlund. It isn’t really strength, but rather, bread and circuses.
As an adult, I am not naive about higher level politics. It's a dirty game. It's not even just about lying. It's about insinuation, rumors, using third parties to say things that politicians don't want to say themselves, omitting facts, twisting facts about opponents and a zillion other facts. Morals don't count, only winning. If Trump is a "leader", I never want to be one. Leaders lead by example. How many MAGAs want their kids to be Donald Trump? I wonder how depressing I would find the answer.
Yes, he is a bully, but he’s got a lot of power and money and people behind him as enforcers. I agree with you in principle, but we’ve been waiting a long time for somebody or some country to stand up to him.
Opposition to abortion is rooted in the belief that a "human being" is present from the moment of conception. This is not a belief held by all religions or all religious people or of any scientific (fact-based not faith-based) validity. It has been amplified by right-wing politicians and political groups most of whom do not give a rat's rear end for belief but whose deep-seated misogyny tells them that Kirche, Kuche, und viele Kinder is a good way to keep uppity women from infringing on their male "rights." To the former, I say, do not have an abortion and may your god go with you.. I have nothing but contempt for the latter.
For Christians to claim that all life is sacred to God is kind of weird, seeing as how He told the Israelites to rip open the pregnant women of Samaria and dash the children to pieces. But then, Samaria had rejected Him, so I guess they were asking for it.
Genocide is an exceptional case when killing th unborn was allowed.
I’m a big admirer of clairvoyance, but I have to ask, how, exactly, does an eighteen year old girl seeking to terminate a pregnancy equate to an “uppity woman infringing on male ‘rights’”?
The male's right to procreate and own his progeny is paramount and a woman making her own choices about a pregnancy infringes on those "rights"
I suppose there are men that actually think in these terms, but I have to say, the next one that I meet will be the first.
I realize that polling data may differ from my own personal experience, but virtually every man (particularly younger men) that I have ever known that has a strong opinion on this matter has vehemently indicated SUPPORT for legal abortion, not opposition to it. The obvious reason for this is their desire to be absolved of any potential financial responsibility that could ensue should they knock up a girlfriend, but it’s also that most of them just aren’t into the whole “life is precious” humanism that underpins the anti-abortion philosophy. (This also partially explains why, contrary to what is commonly purported, the majority of people who are active in the pro-life movement are women).
As far as the claim that there are multitudes of men that sit around obsessing over the goal of having their DNA being loosed upon the world, I don’t doubt that they’re out there, but….
A much greater percentage of women are pro-choice than men.
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5340439-gender-gap-on-abortion-rights-hit-record-high-gallup/#:~:text=Sixty%2Done%20percent%20of%20women%20view%20themselves%20as,themselves%20pro%2Dchoice%2C%20the%20poll%20released%20Monday%20found.
It's not so much a conscious thought of "I have a right to procreate and to control the means of that procreation" as a sense of entitlement that many men have that they are the superior being and women are inferior and that's just how it is and has always been. Religion and social tradition have taught them that and they have internalized it to the point that seeing women as equal and autonomous beings with the right to make their own decisions is nonsensical. Men like that don't think of it as controlling so much as being caring and protective of this lesser being that doesn't have the capacity to understand what is in its own best interest. There are far more of these men out there than one may realize living in our fairly liberal Northern Illinois society. Living in the southern US was a real eye-opener. My husband and I both come from a conservative religious background that minimalized the ability of women discern the Scriptures and have their own opinions on faith and service. We both rebelled against that - my family agreed and also left that faith tradition but his family did not. To his dying day my FIL thought it was "cute" that our churches had female pastors but that is was clearly not right with God.
Thanks, this sheds light. I said that I didn’t doubt that this sort of men existed, and they’re clearly much more ubiquitous in the southern Bible Belt culture.
There is also the philosophical debate over what constitutes consciousness and/or sentience. Which leads into the discussion of when human rights attach and whether those rights are subordinate to the mother's rights.
While this issue seems perfectly clear for newborns, regardless of how premature, it is undefined in philosophy. There is also significant legal incongruity with regard to prenatal humanity, both civil and criminal, when a pregnant woman is killed or injured causing the loss of the pregnancy.
It’s not a legal incongruity to permit abortion and punish a third party’s termination of a woman’s pregnancy against her wishes. Both positions recognize that it’s the woman’s decision what happens to her body before the fetus is viable.
I share your approval of Newsom's approach and social media strategy. I also agree Democrats should be getting off the "go high" high horse. It may have been a noble goal 10 years ago, but has produced disastrous results. It has been like a high school debate team member trying to use logical arguments supported by facts and statistics while being beaten up by the bully in the parking lot. At some point a kick in the balls is an appropriate and necessary response, moral high ground be damned. Seeing the rankled response from the right wing media is very satisfying.
On the reproductive rights motivation question, I answered no. I think the underlying drive is for control more generally, not necessarily against sex for pleasure, although it could be part of it. Abortion opponents are fine with it for older married couples (as far as I can tell), as an example. I think it falls under the "you don't tell *us* what to do, we tell *you* what to do" umbrella of many of their policy goals, together with displaying the ten commandments in schools, book bans, etc.
It was never a noble goal, it was flat out moronic. In election after election, the candidate who was the dirtiest in campaigning almost always won, because negative campaigns are extremely effective!
Michelle Obama's statement was one of the stupidest things ever uttered!
The problem is that under the current political climate, it's not a coherent political strategy. It's not entirely negative. Liberals have a wide variety of different views and are much more accepting of divergence than conservatives. The problem is political infighting over what a coherent political strategy should include. Look at what is happening in New York City, San Francisco, and Minneapolis. I also keep thinking about the mess created by Democrats at the 1968 Democratic convention. 1968 and 1972 were easy for Nixon. Then CREEP had to mess it up for him. Maybe the Democrats do need to go low to beat back the MAGA tide. I have been a staunch advocate of going after Trump more strongly for years. But even more than that, Democrats need to decide where they are headed. They to do it together. Did they learn anything from 2020? Even with the mess over dropping Biden late from the ticket and the weakness of Harris as a candidate, they made it competitive. This also included the failure of many liberals and independents to bother voting over what they saw as the failures of Biden policy. So Trump is beatable. So are other Republicans. The question is whether or not Democrats can unite to do it. And whatever your political sensibilities might be, socialism won't cut it. Even a lot of Democrats won't buy in.
Sorry, old age is getting to me. 2024, not 2020.
You do know you can edit your posts, yes? Just click on those three little dots. Few of mine end up without some post-edits.
What a relief! After 2 weeks of having no idea what the visual jokes even meant, I was torn among 3 outstanding ones! My choice turned out to be not so popular.....but I think Uncle Duke is a treasure!:-)
I can't believe the phone joke isn't winning!
And I can’t believe the kids menu joke isn’t winning. Nobody remembers their offspring back when??
3 OUTSTANDING VQotW candidates today.
we want ranked choice voting on VQotW!
EZ, i know you don't control this - but pls keep the pressure on substack to upgrade VQotW polling. they need to get with the times - their method is so 20-teens ... or 20-oughts. perhaps you could get other substackers to join you in this campaign. and you might also consider taking a poll of your readers.
Random thought having been exposed to a couple opinion polls lately -- I wonder if ranked choice voting were to appear in all sorts of polls and questionnaires whether it would increase support for it's use in elections. I'd be a fan.
I think there is a segment of abortion opponents who don't want people to have sex outside of marriage. And they believe that pregnancy is an excellent punishment for having sex outside of marriage.
Opposition to abortion rights is about control, the control of women. There is nothing moral in this subjugation.
Preach, sista!
I mostly agree with that. The real issue is over life. Only women can have babies. It's simply a fact. I often wonder how the views of men might change if they were capable of having babies after sex. In addition, women are still considered the primary caregivers of the young. They are the ones that can suckle infants. Much of society still sees them as primarily responsible for raising them. So it might be a control thing. But don't discount how society still sees things after children are born. What if government was actually serious about men not simply Injecting sperm and then making for the hills? What if more men had to actually raise them under the fear of penalty for not doing so? Please, I don't want anyone lecturing me on the laws in place for child support and other items. My father left when I was ten years old and it was a constant battle getting my father to help out.
You underline a point of monumental importance here. Last week, in response to another commenter, Eric wrote “I agree that it’s generally better for a child to have two parents in the home”. I thought that this phrasing amounted to a disturbingly cavalier soft pedal of an essential and urgent issue, kind of like saying, “I think that it’s generally better to feed, clothe and shelter your kids rather than making them roam the streets panhandling and stealing in order to provide for themselves”. Or, “I agree that it’s generally better to make sure that children are securely fastened into their seats when riding in cars”. Or, “On the whole, I think it’s best not to let children play with loaded firearms”.
The almost complete normalization of out-of-wedlock childbirth, and the attendant dissolution of the traditional family unit is one of the great disgraces of our time. It amounts to acceptance of the deliberate crippling of children. The devastating social consequences of endemic out-of-wedlock childbirth (mental illness, sexual abuse, drug abuse, suicide, crushing, cyclical poverty) are well known, yet there has been a conscious effort over the last sixty years by political progressives to minimize, if not outright ignore all of this, presumably out of a misguided sense of not wanting to come across as too judgemental.
Or rather, they minimize and ignore when it comes to evaluating the issue at a societal level, but mysteriously seem to see things differently when it is confined to the remit of their own personal lives. One not particularly well kept secret is that the academics and professional class that have spent the last six decades dismissing the vital importance of fathers and marriage in regard to the upbringing of children, are not, as it turns out, so cavalier when it comes to having children of their own, or the values that they instill in them. Out-of-wedlock childbirth is so rare among highly educated professionals that is barely a blip on the radar screen. Their kids are brought up accordingly, and are taught that having children outside of marriage is a nonstarter, because they are fully aware of the crippling effects that it entails. Yet they have spent sixty plus years granting approbation to this practice, which has resulted in the real economic divide that rents our culture, that between the upwardly mobile and economically regressed. The social scientist Charles Murray put it succinctly: the problem with elites is that they do not preach what they practice.
I dislike stereotypes. I am the product of a mostly fatherless family. I think I turned out mostly okay. I do agree that given a choice, I would rather see two parent families- as long as the two are getting along and it is not an abusive situation. I don’t want to stray far from my main point. Women see it as mostly a control issue, which for centuries has been mostly true. It’s not as true as it used to be. There are actually women that choose to be single parents, especially if they don’t like their partners or have any faith in their parenting abilities. I have a sister that was a single parent and raised a wonderful daughter. Her reason was professional. She was an officer and he was a noncm which is a military no no. Sex between men and women is, for the most part, easy and enjoyable for men. They have the knowledge they can’t get pregnant. A good deal of society still sees women as primary caregivers. It would be nice if more men would take responsibility for what they did, at least minimally on the financial end. Attempting to be fathers would be even better. After age 10, I rarely saw mine until adulthood. He raised a second family and I actually have great relationships with my stepmom and stepsiblings. But it still comes down to too many men not taking responsibility in any way. That was my point. If there were better ways of enforcing this, might it change male views on abortive?
Yes, it would be nice if more men would take responsibility for what they did, and attempt to be good fathers. And there’s nothing that retreats more from those goals than to say that marriage is strictly optional, and isn’t really all that intrinsic to the healthy upbringing of a child (not for the least of reasons being that it is a patently false claim that has yielded catastrophic social costs).
Two weeks ago, Eric challenged MAGA minded folks to identify when the exact “golden age” of American greatness was that they were yearning to turn the clock back to. I declined to offer any suggestions, in part because I’m not a Trump supporter, but more because the question seemed like a kind of trap custom tailored to elicit responses that would sound like desperate straw grasping by the hopelessly quaint (Most of the suggestions that appeared in the comments were of the mocking variety, implying that any and all cultural changes are unqualified improvements in life that have lifted us up out of the dark ages). I will, however, offer this: it would be nice (not to mention healthier) if we could go back the the antiquated old social more that held that, if you were a man or a boy that impregnated a woman or a girl, and you did not want to be completely ostracized by friends and family and regarded as loathsome scum, you married her.
I like your ironic wording. Antiquated? I don't know what that means. It is often used in a negative sense, meaning old-fashioned and no longer utile. It assumes that anything newer is better. I don't make that assumption and it doesn't sound like you do, either.
Now you’re catching on Laurence! My use of “antiquated” was a bit of mockery of my own.
Another rotten (in my opinion) rebranding choice was when the inspiringly-named blood donation collection organization, LifeSource, a few years ago decided to instead call itself Vitalant, which sounds like an energy supplement or a caped superhero. Huh?
Vitalant is the most aggressive spam call campaign I've seen.
Whew, obviously you didn't make the mistake of asking for more information from the Neptune Society.
I don't quite count Vitalant as spam, because blood donation is indeed vital. And because donating is other-directed rather than (usually) for one's own benefit, it can be helpful to get a little extra motivation when a new drive is coming up.
But even so, yes, Vitalant can be irritatingly over-eager. I've been called -- "Our records show that it's been a while since your last donation" -- when I literally had donated the day before!
I consider it spam because it's Robo calls (even though it's always "Jared from Vitalant" and they have a new number each time they contact me. But yes, I still give blood as soon as X weeks are up and I'm able to again.
amen! i was a regular donor to Lifesource for many yrs. when the all-knowing leadership of the org changed the name to Vitalant, i said, 'huh?!'
it seemed quite apparent that they didn't survey any of their donors for that change.
i still donate blood regularly, but to the American Red Cross - not out of pique with Vitalant - i moved out IL.
EZ -
What % of your visual quips come from Uncle Duke? (Not insignificant, I'll posit.)
Newsom's Social Media Team are cracking!
Uncle Duke is a treasure!
No idea of the percentage, but he's very good and diligent.
Newsom's social media posts have been the highlight of the last week for me. I fall easily into a doom and gloom mentality when it comes to the current regime, GCN's posts have helped keep me out of the depths.
Great photo from Newsom!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GypBlGwWwAAfgBR?format=jpg&name=900x900
Admittedly I think Gavin Newsom's primary motivation is setting himself up to run for president, but the important thing is, he--or his Twitter writers--are hilarious. Geez, if he's that funny in person at debates, he'll be a tough competitor despite all the problems people can point at in California.
Wonder if he is writing them himself or if he has a Hollywood writing room helping out. I agree they are a relief and maybe even a modest remedy.
I think that that motivation is a noble one, and would have been nice if he had been stricken by it two or six years ago. With his impeccable political cunning, debating expertise, charm, charisma and pretty-boy movie star good looks (which shouldn’t necessarily be important factors, but are) Newsom has always seemed an obvious choice to me for candidacy. I grew weary of hearing defeatist minded Democrats who would say things like, “Oh, he’s the governor of California, the Republicans will make mincemeat out of him because of that! They’ll rip him to shreds and paint him as a whack job radical, he’d never have a chance”, etc. (Oddly, none of these people seemed to have any objection to shoehorning Harris into the nomination at the eleventh hour, as if she were more likely to defeat Trump).
But... how in the world does Newsome answer critics who will quickly point out that there has been a veritable flood of both people and businesses out of California during his tenure as chief executive, despite it being perhaps some of the most beautiful weather and scenery in the country? People have unquestionably been voting with their feet that they do not like what has become of California. An attack ad claiming that Newsome will want to do to the rest of the us what he has done to California would be powerful.
Newsom's answer is simple, California has gone from the fifth largest economy on Earth & has passed the entire country of Germany to become the fourth largest economy on Earth!
But Garry - that just seems to highlight the fact that, despite a booming economy, people and businesses are fleeing California by the hundreds of thousands. People are voting with their feet and Newsome is the person most accountable for that as the chief executive. And do you believe it is simply just a big coincidence that the same is true for bright blue New York and Illinois??
But David, why can't you spell Newsom's name correctly?
Hah - my bad, and thanks for holding me accountable my friend!
It would be powerful, but also manageable. Population actually increased in Cali the last couple years. Illinois as well. Yes, immigration, I know, but there are other factors contributing to population shifts beyond the Fox News version, such as birth rates, death rates, climate, and remote work opportunities. Regardless, think about the last few POTUS. How many were voted in based on their past records? It has been more about "lesser of two evils", "voting against the other person", or proposed visions such as "Hope and Change" or "MAGA".
Hi Ted - yes indeed, a massive influx of many millions of illegal immigrants with the overwhelming majority flooding to blue states and particularly large blue cities for all the welcoming free benefits. This was the end game of the Democrat open borders to prop up population for the census to maintain greater Congressional representation. And the influx of this massive illegal immigration has indeed propped up population in Illinois and california. But, I digress. While many people do vote on policy differences such as immigration, taxation, etc, I think you are right that many people are either inclined toward or away from a candidate by their personna and how successfully their respective campaigns can market them to the public. I'm very much looking forward to 2028 when people who love or hate Trump will not be voting on that basis, but hopefully more so on policies. We'll see. Have a great day!
the same can pretty much be said for pritzker as for newsom [other than the weather & the magnitude of the scenery] - 'if you're so good & IL is so great, why has IL lost population every year you've been in office?'
note, i acknowledge that decline trend began before pritzker took office - but that's even more damning of Dem party governance of IL.
Agreed, but I believe the exodus, which included me and my wife upon retirement, certainly accelerated during Pritzker's time in office. That and all the other financial metrics that reveal Illinois to be a basket case makes it incredible to think that people in Illinois truly think Pritzker has any credibility whatsoever as a Presidential candidate. He certainly is not going to wow with the way he presents himself. As a conservative, I believe the strongest candidates Democrats could put forth in 2028 are headlined by Josh Shapiro, Andy Beshear and or Gretchen Whitmer. But at this point I doubt that the Mamdani-socialist wing of the party would be amenable with such a mainstream candidate. (And I personally strongly favor Nikki Haley as the GOP candidate, but I fear it is likely to be Vance who I see as a weaker candidate.)
interesting. i always enjoy reading your comments, even when i disagree.
and i may disagree on this one. like you i waved good-bye to Chgo & IL shortly after retirement. now living in Mich. while i believe whitmer would be a strong candidate to win the Dem nomination for POTUS, i doubt she could win a genl election. misogyny, misrepresentation & lies by residual post-trump MAGA would likely doom her candidacy.
my pick for Dems strongest candidate - rahm emanuel. he could go toe-to-toe with any Repub candidate, he's amoral [like most of the Repub likelies, the ones who aren't immoral] - and he's actually well-qualified for the position.
he'd have trouble attracting and motivating the Dems' far left, a not insignificant impediment to getting the Dem nomination.
but i'm addressing his ability to win the gen'l election, not to get the nomination.
Rahm is indeed the ultimate politician, but I believe the stain of the tapes from the Laquan McDonald shooting would continue to Hound him and be a Flashpoint for both blacks and the hard left within the Democratic party. Whitmer does indeed have some baggage, but as much as I despise identity politics, there will be a significant percentage of vote that goes to a female running to be the first female President. She's articulate and presents herself well, and from my side of the political fence I would see her as a very formidable candidate. Josh Shapiro would be Dynamite although the hard left in the Democratic Party would not tolerate anyone friendly to Israel, let alone a Jew. Andy Bashear would be very Bill Clintonesqe in that he is arelatively unknown Centrist from a small state and I believe would be perhaps the strongest Democratic candidate at least at this point, but again, I believe the Democratic activists who vote in primaries have moved too far left for a Centrist candidate. I believe Haley would be the strongest candidate with a clear path to winning in 2028, but I know that many of the magazines are unforgiving of her challenge to Trump in the primary and that he has not reconciled with her. So we will see - the midterms are going to come first and very interesting times for us political junkies, right?
Having seen him in debates and most recently in podcasts, I find him lame, disingenuous, and weaselly. He is particularly challenged when he tries to address his own policy and position reversals. Many of his podcast appearances are clearly aimed at making him look more centrist. This tack may be useful in positioning himself as the best candidate to appeal to both the centrists and the fringe lefties.
But while very humorous, his attack ads are a risk, in my view. Some who would vote for him but have no sense of humor (and there are some Dems in that camp) might not. For now, I want him to continue those ads because they so aggravate the Fox News folks - and Trump - and they just make my day! Then Newsom will just have to figure out if running for president is what he really wants to do. Maybe he and Colbert could get together. . .
The fundamental problem in fighting Trump and his minions is the Democrats don’t have a strong leader who stands out and will garner the public’s attention.
Yeh, where’s Bill Clinton when we need him?
Trying to avoid Epstein connections.
I believe in retrospect he did a pretty good job as President, but unfortunately today the Democratic party would never nominate someone as much of a centrist as he was.
I would hardly call President Clinton a centrist. Despite the fact that he respected a woman’s right to choose, and that he nominated women to important positions in government, his campaign to end welfare as we know it was definitely right wing and reactionary. Same with his “don’t ask, don’t tell policy” which kept LGBTQ+ people in the closet.
I like the Newsom posts overall. It both highlights Trump foolishness, and makes Newsom appear less elitist. Ultimately the dems need a solid working class agenda behind their newly found fight. I still dislike the TACO thing, however. Telling someone with that power and temperament they always chicken out isn't wise. At a time when we want him to back off, it only encourages.
As frightening as Trump 2028 sounds, Vance may be worse. Younger, slicker, even more nationalist. There's a good recent Ezra Klein podcast about recent Vance speeches, Yoram Hazony, and the thought process behind "The Virtue of Nationalism". The entire movement needs to be exposed as irrational, not just focusing on Trump antics.
At least Vance isn't owned & operated by Putin, as far as anyone knows. That alone is an improvement!
Just a reminder my friend that Trump had maintained sanctions in place that had prevented completion of Putin's cherished Nordstream II pipeline. Sadly, Biden removed those sanctions his very first week in office allowing completion of the pipeline and enabled Russian sale of gas to Europe.
That was a failed attempt to get Russia integrated into the world's economy & prevent them for starting any wars. Obviously it failed as Putin is both insane & a megalomaniac determined to reconstitute the Soviet Union, which that ex-KGB agent considers to be paradise on Earth!
I still think Putin has Kompromat on Trump.
I don't think it, I flat out guarantee it!
Garry - going back to our original discussion on newsom's governance of california, did you happen to see the news report on the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond announcing they are completely exiting California and explicitly blaming it on a very inhospitable business client there? I believe that Newsom is going to have difficulty explaining precisely that type of thing under his term.
He's full of shit. My guess is that Californians were just not buying anything at his stores there for some reason. Maybe they didn't like the selection. I know I didn't like the prices at the one I went into that was in Wilmette, they were much higher than necessary! Plus the layout of the store was maddening!
Hey Garry - it is not just Bed Bath and Beyond. Since Newsome became governor in 2019, over 25% of all business relocations nationally have been businesses leaving California. The leading state for relocation of this businesses has been bright red Texas. California finances are in a very perilous state because of the loss of business and individual tax revenues, and I don't know how Newsom can purport to lead the US when this is what has happened to California under his watch. (Pritzker and Illinois fall into the same category on a somewhat lesser scale, and the same applies to his standing as a potential presidential candidate.) Happy Friday!
Here is what AI had to say about how Vance became a rich person who was influenced and trained by others: "Political and Financial Support: (Peter) Thiel has been a significant benefactor for Vance's political ambitions, donating $15 million to Vance's Ohio Senate campaign. Thiel also reportedly helped Vance connect with former president Trump." I never see anything about Peter Thiel, and he has been working with Vance for a very long time. He is a true force for us to worry about. Also, Vance's wife - once a Democrat - apparently sensed real possibilities in this southern Ohioan (perhaps once he wrote the book and made money?) I always wonder how she can countenance the ugliness of the Trump administration enough that she is supportive of her husband learning how to be obnoxious and a total suck-up to this egregious human being who is in the role of president of the USA. She is an immigrant - how can she live with the policies of this administration? And while she is well-educated, she is a person of color. Few Republican leaders can abide those who are not like them. I guess it's greed or preservation or she got past the idea of sleeping with the enemy. I had better stop there.
It’s like Caitlyn Jenner supporting Trump. She’s a self-hating trans person. Or willing to hate herself for more money and power. It’s sick.
Love Gavin’s “Thank you for your attention to this matter.” I’m going to start signing all my emails that way.
Although I think Trump was just pulling our chain on his “no elections in wartime” remark, I do seem to recall that there was an election in 1944, when a certain amount of war was going on. 1864, too, which may be more germane.
Michelle Obama was right! During the erudite, gracious and democratic Obama years. But now it's time to fight back in the language the MAGAs seem to understand.
She was never right, it was wrong & stupid then, as it is now & will always be. The most negative ad running candidate almost always wins by dirtying up his/her opponent!
As the first lady, not a candidate, I thought it was a very appropriate thing for her to say as it fit with her personality. Negative campaigning does work (unfortunately) but *candidates* don't typically support it, they just let the campaign staffers use it.
You must be joking! The candidate is always behind the negative campaign!
One of the things that surprises me is the extent to which many people view Trump as a “strong” leader or speak of “strength” as one of his qualities. Trump’s “strength” is no different from the “strength” of an adolescent teenage boy acting the bully on the school playground. It is childish bravado, not strength. And we all have experience with what happens to that kind of bravado when someone who is being picked on actually stands up to the schoolyard bully. The bully gets his ass kicked. If Trump continues in this vein, which he surely will, eventually there will be a country that stands up to his bullying swagger, and then things will get very dangerous indeed.
What seems weird to me is that there is a significant percentage of the population that view Trump’s adolescent bullying bravado as strength.
Or, put another way, it’s the same as the “strength” of a professional wrestler who wields maximum braggadocio whilst being interviewed by Mean Gene Okerlund. It isn’t really strength, but rather, bread and circuses.
As heard elsewhere - Trump is what a weak person imagines a strong person to be.
And what a poor person thinks a rich person is like!
As an adult, I am not naive about higher level politics. It's a dirty game. It's not even just about lying. It's about insinuation, rumors, using third parties to say things that politicians don't want to say themselves, omitting facts, twisting facts about opponents and a zillion other facts. Morals don't count, only winning. If Trump is a "leader", I never want to be one. Leaders lead by example. How many MAGAs want their kids to be Donald Trump? I wonder how depressing I would find the answer.
Yes, he is a bully, but he’s got a lot of power and money and people behind him as enforcers. I agree with you in principle, but we’ve been waiting a long time for somebody or some country to stand up to him.