In the last few weeks, women who would like to have relatively easy access to birth control have been called sluts. Women who’d rather not be raped by their doctors if they need to end a pregnancy have been told that since they had sex once, they really should be okay with just any old thing taking a trip inside their vagina. Women who would like options for preventing pregnancy have told that they only birth control they need is an aspirin between their legs.
And I get it. I mean when women are all blahblahfeelings, blahblahpleasedon’tmakeadifficultproceduremoredifficult, blahblahwhyaren’twelookingoutforthehealthofthenation… It’s annoying, am I right, fellas?
This guy knows what I’m talkin’ about.
And as TV and film have drummed into our heads, listening to a woman talk is like teh worstest thing evah!!
I mean, you’d think that legislators would use a couple of things called “reason” and “logic” to help get good laws through and bad ones out. But, c’mon, they have a lot of things going on, we really can’t expect them to give 210% like that.
But we can’t just chalk up their inability to grasp some basic tenants of health care because they’re busy. So here are 5 reasons that these guys have a hard time understanding what’s so blahblah”important”blah.
1. Men do not have sex with women. I mean, they must not, or the lawmakers who know that it’s in a woman’s best interest to not have relatively easy access to prescription birth control must not anyway. If those men did ever have sex with women, they might say things like “Hey, I want to have options for birth control, too. And I want to make extra sure my partner and I don’t get pregnant since I’m not interested in having a child right now. I hope that women continue to have access to birth control so that I can have a safe and healthy sexual experience with this hot piece of ass who’s on my lap right now.” Since men, or at least the men supporting these legislations, are not saying crazy bananas sentences like, they must not be involved with ladies in the Biblical sense.
The only thing dudes are sleeping with these days are snazzy body pillows!
2. Men do not have daughters or wives. I mean, they must not, or the lawmakers who know that it’s in a woman’s best interest to not have relatively easy access to prescription birth control must not anyway. If they did have daughters or wives, they might find themselves sayings things like, “While I’d rather my young daughter not have sex right now, I understand that she might. Lots of teenagers do and even though I really hope she waits, I want her to be safe if she does. I’d also like for her to be in the habit of protecting her uterus so that once she leaves my house, she can make safe, informed decisions about how not to get pregnant if she doesn’t want to get pregnant.”
If they had daughters or wives, they also might say things like “Holy crap, my daughter and/or wife is in the hospital because of her poly cystic ovarian syndrome. I’m glad that these doctors are helping us get birth control for them so that they don’t have to be in this kind of pain every month, for it makes me sad to see women I care about in pain, especially when that pain is avoidable with something as simple as relatively easy access to prescription birth control.”
Huh, I always thought weddings were more popular. Guess not.
3. Men are not pro-life. I mean, they must not be, or the lawmakers who know that it’s in a woman’s best interest to not have relatively easy access to prescription birth control must not anyway….This one’s weird because the people who don’t want women to get birth control are also typically people who do not want women to have abortions. But if they really didn’t want women to have abortions, they might say something like “Wow, thank goodness for relatively easy access to birth control. Now, couples can have sex if they want to and significantly reduce the likelihood that they’re going to end up pregnant if they don’t want to be pregnant. And since people have abortions when they don’t want to be pregnant, and since I am pro-life, I am happy that couples can get the protection that they need so that fewer people have to have abortions.”
Loves sweater vests....in part they keep you all warm when you're not getting proper medical care.
4. Men do not want women to be able to go to work. I mean, they must not, or the lawmakers who know that it’s in a woman’s best interest to not have relatively easy access to prescription birth control must not anyway. If they did want women to be able to go to work, they might say something like “Jesus! Your wife was in the hospital because of complications related to her medical condition that could be abated by having access to prescription birth control?? I’m going to make sure that my employees have access to birth control so that I don’t lose chunks of my workforce unnecessarily.”
A sick day's kinda like a spa day, anyway, right? You get to rest and you're surrounded by fluids.
5. Men do not understand how uteri work, and they do not care to be burdened with this information. I mean, they must not, or the lawmakers who know that it’s in a woman’s best interest to not have relatively easy access to prescription birth control must not anyway. If they did understand how uteri and ovaries work, they might say something like “Holy fuck, did Rush fucking Limbaugh just intimate that birth control gets more expensive if you have more sex?!?! That’s fucking bullshit and anyone who believes that should never ever ever reproduce. Thank god for access to birth control!!!!!”
Remember kids: Using insurance to pay for birth control = shameful. Using insurance to pay for your prescription drug addiction...just makes good sense. Oxy isn't cheap, yo!
So, blahblah, thank you for reading. You totally deserve a Klondike!
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What are your thoughts on birth control, the access to it, who should be allowed to provide and/or just doing away with sex so we don’t have to bother our pretty little heads with this ish anymore? Let us know in the comments!
The Oreo Experience 
I just propose to call it menstruation control.
You’re my very favorite
🙂 This warmed up my Friday.
I am a man and all the above apply to me, except 4. Strangely, I think women should have easy access to prescription birth control.
Sadly this topic is just an example of how far we as a country still have to go in the realm of equality. Then again, we live in a society that continues to look down on women who “selfishly” decide to put their education or career above settling down and popping out kids. Add to the fact we have old wrinkled men weighing in on what women should do with their lives, someone’s got it twisted.
Wait, what am I saying? I’m a guy. Uh, shouldn’t women be kept barefoot and pregnant? They don’t need no birth control. Kidding aside, they need to make it happen. The long term benefits of increasing birth control accessibility will offset the costs by leaps and bounds. But that little fact is hard to see when your head is lodged up your ass.
*drops 2 pennies in the cup and walks off*
Side note – I love Oreos.
What luck, I like you blog and Klondike’s too!
First off, it’s an undeserved knock on politicians to suggest that they don’t like sluts. Fact is, they love em. Besides graft, lying to the public, bungling, interfering in our lives, spouting gas bag platitudes and wasting our money, it may be the one thing they are the most reliably consitent about and where there is no such thing as gridlock or partisan bickering.
As for “easy access to birth control,” now that’s a clever bit of diversionary political parsing intended to raise the hackles of feminists that’s just as reliably predictable and sure fire certain to do its work on the feminine mind as a pavlovian trigger. And when coupled with such charged phrases as “women’s rights” and “women’s health care”? Why it becomes a mechanism certain to unhinge the delicate balance of the female psyche, thus decoupling it from its literal meaning (as just another demanded big nanny mandated pharmacutical entitlement freebie), to a hot button trigger sure to flip every toggle and light every fuse in the feminine mind so that the issue becomes one as immediate volatile and unrelated to any rational connection to its origin as a cartoon anarchist’s bomb tossed into a crowd of females headed for a door buster sale at Macys.
Please tell me you’re being facetious by using phrases like “the feminine mind,” and “delicate balance of the female psyche.” Please.
Glad to. If you’ll do likewise with the over the top circling the wagons reaction (albeit satirical, tounge in cheek. I get it) as though some sacred tenet of feminism had been assaulted when in truth the only one even remotely under attack here, near as I can tell is a core principle held for centuries by Catholics, who are pretty much total innocents in this, and who should be left alone with their beliefs respected.
Except it’s not. The argument is about allowing institutions to deny certain coverage based on their own moral codes, which are personal yes, and thus potentially wildly inconsistent. And just because I happen to have a boss who happens to belong to one religion, that should not force me to live per that religion’s codes whether or not I belong to the same religion. If a person doesn’t want to use contraception, that’s wonderful! All they have to do is not use it. However just because someone doesn’t want to use contraception doesn’t give them the right to stop me from using contraception.
Except it’s not, sis. There is in fact no one, individual, organization, cracker cult, church, boy scout troop or institution barring you from contraception. And I think you know that. Yet you seem to ‘ve totally dug yourself into a trench on the wrong side of no man’s land on this one. Cuz “coverage” in this context is just that, a cover, camouflage conceiling a totally different issue other than access to birth control which you seem determined not to address. And one nothing even remotely to do with insurance or health care, women’s rights, moral issues of equality, the instrinsic rights of the oppressed, good vs evil, David vs Goliath, or Godzilla going (for our entertainment creature to creature fang and claw) against the freekin’ Smog Monster, either.
And unless you’re refering to the institutions of touchy thin skinned pushy political correctness or another where one might be a concerned next of kin’s signature away from a straight jacket resulting from off the rails rug chewing foam at the mouth feminism, then there is nothing real or that can be rationally imagined blocking your access to or demanding your egress from your chosen method of contraception.
that was me, blademan.
I think you’re not hearing what I’m saying. I ~think~ you’re hearing me say that I think bc should be totally free and that there’s no way to get bc apart from work-related insurance…and that’s not what I’m saying.
What I am saying is this: When you get insurance through you work, like I do, you pay into it out of your own earnings. Since employees are paying for part of their insurance, it seems odd to me to not allow them to use that money to get whatever meds they need. Especially when those meds can actually help stave off a number of associated problems.
And while I’m not at all saying that it is impossible to get bc outside of work-related insurance, I’m also saying that getting prescription bc is not necessarily that easy of a thing to do. There are physical logistics like being able to get to a doctor for the necessary visit(s) etc. And if you aren’t able to get bc through your work insurance, even if they give you some of the $ back, costs can still be prohibitive. So being able to get it through work is helpful for, I believe, both the individual and also the institution.
My other point was that if companies are allowed to deny/re-finagle coverage based on “moral objections,” then that definitely sets up a tricky slope and that for ease of implementation and to be as fair to as many people as possible, it might make more sense to not start rifling through plans that way.
I believe I did in fact fail to hear it, but only cuz honestly? I think (and if you’ll check the archives I’m pretty sure I’m right about this), you’ll find that it’s the first time you ever said it.
Okay, so you pay premiums and your insurance through your job doesn’t cover it. Hey, I’m sure there are other things they don’t cover too, like medical marajuana, face lifts, hair plugs, heightening shin bone grafts and gender reassignment surgery. I worked at a place that didn’t even provide dental care for instance. Also not fair, and equally odd since everybody’s got teeth, right? And for a critical time I had to get along with just my G.I. insurance, having to deal with no regular doctor plus always being skeptical about how good my coverage coulda been since at the time it seemed as though the army was in fact doing everything they could to actually see to it that I got injured. And if I’da maybe had my athlete’s foot problem cured by having my legs blown off? I’m certain of at least one religion that would have seen it as a moral judgement placed upon me by God.
I’m gonna guess here and say that the Catholic church isn’t even indirectly causing you to assume the cost of your birth control, but even if it is, although possibly put out inconvenienced irked by the injustice of it all and very likely a bit POed about it in the bargain, can’t you at least understand their holding to a long standing principle enough not to insist that they abandon it even though it might seem backward, archaic and out of place in a modern world in your mind, eniough to at least conjure up enough understanding to make the same sort of accomodation any of ourselves outside the church might wish to be granted in respect to some one of our own cherished beliefs?
Fact is we make such accomodations every day for other faiths, while with others the government forces them upon us, like a faith in their taking our money and spending it wisely. Now that’s an issue (i.e being coerced into knowingly play the sucker and *then* being responsible for the the lousy paperwork!). Now *that* I don’t mind taking a stand against.
I definitely never said “Birth control is impossible to come by and every woman should get it for free!”
The post is in response to the fact that national leaders think it’s okay to disparage women because they sometimes have sex. That they think it’s okay to insinuate that women don’t “need” birth control b/c all they have to do is practice “self control” instead. That they are willing to ignore facts about health and health care in order to support some sort of morality.
Face lifts and bone grafts to make one taller are not in the same category of birth control. Those procedures are (except in the case of serious injury/disfigurement) incapable of helping with a potentially life threatening condition the way that bc is. But frankly, if someone is paying into their health plans, I don’t really care what procedures they have done. It’s not really my business any more than it’s their business what I want to do about my migraines.
I’m not irked by this concept b/c I work for the Catholic Church. It concerns me because it sets a precedent for other businesses to follow.
Also, I AM religious and I also understand that we do not live in a theocracy and therefore, I cannot expect a government to make or bend laws based solely on my religious beliefs.
How do you think the government is forcing people to behave in ways consistent with other specific religions? I find that if one wants to pray in public or not have an abortion or not have sex with someone of the same sex, it’s pretty easy not to do those things.
Well, you’d pretty much already settled the issue of my speculative assumption of your supporting equality of access (easy, universal and yes free,) via a government coerced mandated coverage. And the issue’s precipitating a general feminist sense of outrage (which it has IMO) being central to your own position on the matter existing as the unspoken sub text central to your piece.
You said you don’t, you never said it was, and it isn’t, so I’ll concede that I was wrong in those particulars… in your case.
I was kidding about the heightening surgery, hair plugs and face lifts of course, a bit of comic hyperbole to make a point. But you referred to being fearful of a slippery slope precedent being set here, and I agree. Only I’d contend that even though while what I said may be a joke now, the slope I see us sliding down i.e. where every minority grievance, pet gripe and the satisfaction of every seemingly wild and fanciful demand is addressed as public policy and given common sense denying credence and consideration is exactly where we’re headed, and in many respects where we are, with the government having proved itself time and again to be the cause of most of it. And thus being precisely the wrong place to look to as the agent to settle that which could never be settled to universal satisfaction anyway, but which could and true to form certainly would make things worse.
All women today have access to birth control and the men they are having sex with have access to condoms. If these women attending George Town University.. which cost around $45,000 per year to attend cannot afford birth control then they should keep their legs closed..get an extra job to support their sexual addiction OR date men who have enough money to buy condoms and/or birth control for her if he just can’t stand the thought of using a condom. Why is this woman attending a Catholic school anyway? She should go to Berkely or a liberal college. Birth Control..Viagra…Hair Transplants..Abortions should not be covered by health insurance because it makes EVERYBODY’s premiums go up..Sorry I don’t want to pay for some other guys lovers birth control nor do I want to pay for some girls boyfriends condoms or hair transplant surgery..Not interested in paying for other mens Viagra either..
Bottom line is pay your own way and stop trying to force everyone else to pay for your life…
Get a JOB…or TWO or THREE… and please if you can’t afford to pay your bills please do not have children and concider giving up sex…
If someone is against paying for healthcare in general, I don’t agree with that, but I can respect the opinion.
However, access to prescription birth control is simply not just about sex. There are a variety of conditions related to a woman’s reproductive organs that can be abated with prescription birth control. And a LOT of women have these issues. To withhold access to cures for conditions simply because people also can have safer sex on bc just doesn’t make sense to me.
There are also a TON of other medical conditions that can be helped with lifestyle changes and do not necessitate the use of medication, but I’m not sure people are ready to give up access to those medications just yet.
Birth control also helps other costs go down.
By having easier access to bc, women can avoid emergency trips to the hospital or doctors (more of which would ostensibly also increase insurance costs for everyone), employers would lose less time to sick days which means they would take less of a hit on their bottom line, which would mean they could potentially pass those savings on to consumers or employees. And, more women could avoid having to have larger-scale./more expensive medical procedures later, which would again, keep insurance costs down.
Just as reasonable and relevent to sell the argument by saying that by preventing the added weight of pregnancy, you’ll be getting better gas miliage too. Which still doesn’t get around the bogus nature of “easy access to contraception” as an issue when such access exists and is in fact pretty darn easy. Nor is anybody talking about taking it away from anyone.
If by easy access you merely mean “free” then just say so. Then maybe we can start altering other phrases to conform to it, like “sugar easy access cola” or “cafene easy access coffee,” “easy access fall,” “care easy access,” and like that.
“Just as reasonable and relevant to sell the argument by saying that by preventing the added weight of pregnancy, you’ll be getting better gas mileage too.”
Not quite, since it’s easy to make a reasonable and relevant connection between the issues OE stated, but not the one about gas mileage. It really isn’t a semantic issue, or one of just wanting something for “free”. “Easy” is a relative term. it denotes that some other way is harder. Having to pay more for something is economically harder. There is no debating that. So saying easy access to birth control based on the concept that more affordable is easier is not a bogus argument. Access already exists, neither OE or any other woman who has debated this has said otherwise. And access can be easier without being “free”. If women are paying a health care premium, and/or a co-pay fee, it isn’t free anyway, and I haven’t heard any women saying they did not want to pay those costs.
It’s already been established that there are women who need medication that is also used for birth control for other medical conditions. We could develop non birth control medication for those illnesses, but that would cost millions in research and development. Those costs would, of course, be tacked onto health care premiums. If birth control isn’t used to treat those illnesses because its too expensive, then the market will drive pharmaceutical companies to fill that gap with a cheaper medication… and your premiums will rise to cover the search for that cheaper medication. The reality is, we’re gonna pay either way.
Also, I understand the sarcasm behind caffeine free coffee and the other analogies, but since it is a totally different usage of the word free it actually weakened your point rather than strengthened it. Anyway, unless we are discussing changing the rules for Viagara and vasectomies as part of this discussion, we shouldn’t be discussing it. Fair is fair.
Well, if you understood the sarcasm, then you get my point. As in like, where does it end, eh? Just how much do we expect to squeeze out of an insurance plan and when do we start to squawk because our premiums don’t seem to cover everything we feel we’re entitled to, which may seem reasonable enough to us (and may in fact be so to most folks) but at the same time juuuuuust doesn’t quite cover the next gal’s demand for a fifth rhinoplasty, them doctors having failed each time to achieve her right (after all, she’s payin’ them premiums) to look like ellie macphereson?
You say no one’s demanding free stuff, or a day’s work for two weeks pay? Oh, really. But gee, the bank talked me intuh taking out that mortgage on my 5k square foot mansion (backed by a government mandate) only my unemployment checks wouldn’t quite cover them monthly payments so I want a redo, plus all my money back, and oh, my student loan and credit cards paid off while they’re at it. Besides, ever since I exchanged my drinking problem for drugs, my expenses have gone way up, and of course nunna that’s *my* fault cuz I’ve gotuh disease yuh know, plus my parents spanked me that time I tried tuh burn down the garage when I was eleven, and besides, when my great great grand parents came here they were indentured servants, and Irish, so a lotta folks usta give em dirty looks when they were walkin tuh mass swingin’ their shalaylees, so I deserve some money fer that too. And wait, while we’re on the subject, since it’s always been my dream tuh be a radio announcer, it ain’t fair that NPR wouln’t hire me and give me my own show juss cuz I’ve got a lisp ‘n stammer a little and have turrets so I naturally swear a lot when I get nervous which makes me a minority AND handicapped besides so I’m entitled to be first in line tuh take over for katie kurik when she retires or gets forced out cuz she got old an’ lost her looks, which was about five years ago way I figure..
“Easy” isn’t just a relative term, it’s a subjective one. And what’s “fair,” and what’s “reasonable”?
Those are too.
But what’s “affordable”, now that isn’t.
However, universal satisfaction and Utopia, those certainly are (subjective).
And so far, and with good reason, no one’s ever achieved them. While trying to (and it’s been tried all too often), in the end, nearly always leaves everyone with bupkis.
But we’re actually doing what we’re supposed to do. We’re treating insurance and in this case, the government like any other good or service we purchase.
When people go to restaurant and pay for a meal, if the meal does not meet their expectations, they make it known and the patron and manager look for a solution.
People pay taxes and for those taxes, they want services in return. So we have a system where people can petition for those services. If it is decided that those services are in the best interest for a majority of the people, then we’ll move forward with implementing. There’s nothing wrong with people asking for things from a system into which they’ve paid taxes. Some things they’ll get (like health care), some they won’t (like reparations). No decision is going to please every single person, but that’s the way it goes. So, people figure “hey, since birth control affects at least 88% of the population as a whole and 100% of women, let’s maybe see if we can do something about it.”
Are there SOME crazy people who want everything in life for free? Sure. Many of them are called businessmen who want all kinds of tax loopholes, don’t want to pay good wages and have the money to keep their friends in office. 🙂 I honestly don’t know anyone like the person you describe above. And while I’m sure that person might exist, that person is also probably not savvy enough to figure out how to wield any sort of political power.
I don’t think people are looking for utopia, I think people are just trying to make sure as many people as possible are as healthy and as safe as possible. And they’d quite like to not be called sluts or prostitutes in the process.
And I don’t think that looking out for the masses has left most people with bupkis. I think we have issues in this country, but we also really do have lots and lots of great things. Great things that have been fought for and I’m pleased to be a part of that fight.
Treating government like any other good or service, and that being something we’re supposed to do?
I don’t even know what that means, or how it in any way fits in this context. But lemme say this, sis. In the first place, the government doesn’t produce anything, which is just as well. Cuz whenever it sticks its pushy, bungling, infinitely wasteful meddlesome nose in the private sector (which is all too often), it inevitably, without fail, 100 percent of the time, screws things up.
Consider the recent example of the Chevy Volt, A big nanny mandated ill conceived, unworkable, prohibitively expensive, and as it turned out dangerous (more likely to combust on the first try than a bic lighter), piece of junk and mechanical metaphor for the current administration you seem to place such faith in, that nobody needed, no one could afford, that couldn’t be produced without heavy tax payer subsidies, nobody expressed any interest in seeing coming about, didn’t work anyway, and nobody wanted in the first place.
There are elements of the private sector that work the way you say as illustrated by your restaurant analogy, but certainly not the government which is a king kong stubbornly inefficient bureaucratic red tape swamp, infested with deaf dumb and blind effete useless pencil pushers who’re about as responsive, efficient, concerned, accountable, and as likely to effectively address a public grievance and act quickly in its best interest as you’re likely to get from a barber poll to your complaint about a bad haircut.
There is no reasonable or proportionate quid pro quo (as you suggest) between services rendered and taxes paid from such an entity, nor is one possible given the nature of that entity as I’ve described it. Once a tax dollar is coerced from the pocket of some poor working schlep and cranked through the government hopper, you’re very lucky if a quantifiable two cents worth of service comes out the other end.
No, there’s nothing wrong with asking for something in exchange for your tax dollar, but you’re not dealing with sears roebuck here, but an unaccountable criminally ineffective and wasteful leviathan with a tax code geared toward social engineering so convoluted and filled with arcane gobbledegook that not even its highest administrators can consistently decipher it correctly. And so unfairly aimed to favor loyal constituencies to perpetuate itself that it’s gotten to the point where fully 49 percent of its citizens pay zero federal income tax (when that figure reaches 50, we’re done) while the top 30 bears nearly all of the burdon. Yet we continue to hear all the class warfare rhetoric about paying ones “fair” share while the system is so unfair itself and corrupted that defining what’s truly equitable and doing so couldn’t be sorted out by divine intervention. And you think sealing tax break loopholes to businesses would solve that?
Sis, think about it, businesses don’t pay taxes. Ever. They pass them on to their customers as an operating expense just like any other cost i.e. labor, machinery slash equipment, office furniture, rent, building maintenance or advertizing. Why sticking it to that ever populay whipping boy, the oil companies for example (who unlike the government efficiently produces a badly needed and worthwhile product) is an indirect way of sticking it to you and me who’re inevitably the ones who’ll hafta pay frit.
When you say you don’t know anyone like the people I described and asked if I do, I say, Oh, boy do I. Just as you must, certainly, otherwise I think you muss putting me on. That or your work for the catholic church involves your living in a cloister (but not as a nun I take it, given your advocacy). When it comes to government programs I think you’d discover a greater percentage of scam artists and cheats than you’d find in maximum security lock-up or at a pickpockets convention.
Utopia is a dog chasing its tail concept, indefinable and unachievable because it suggest universal wish fulfillment and satistiaction. While individually we may have an idea of what it is, when we start comparing notes we find that it inevitably leads to irresolvable bitter often acrimonious bickering cuz there can never be any consensus, and the costs involved, cuz the concept to most of us rather than anything spiritual, tends toward more crass commercial things like those goods and services you referred to (including a lotta free stuff like cars, lavish digs, big screen tv’s, and the satisfaction of “natural rights” to things like unlimited medical care and birth control). All of which carrry a required cost and the inevitable dispute over just who is to bear it.
It’s a concept which has alway been a lie exploited by government, and has put us on a path of a bupkis result (not there yet but gettin close) of 16 trillion dollars of debt (more money than has ever been printed) government spending in excess of GDP, an insatiable sense of entitlement engendered in its people, and in the end, to use a familiar dickensian phrase, if the fates go unaltered, to the destruction of our currency, the end of our society as we know it. And, to put it mildly, to the ultimate dissatisfaction of every malcontent, pet gripe mongering special interest greedy demanding selfish squeeky wheel one of us.
Now sis, you expressed a noble sentiment about some great fight you see yourself engaged in. Can you be more specific as to just what that might be?
So, it sounds like you just dislike government in general. Which is fine, but I’m not sure then, if you just dislike government spending, why the particular name-calling and whatnot when it came to people wanting birth control to be a priority. I don’t think the government is a perfectly working entity, but I also think it has done some things have worked out just fine. Roads and parks come to mind. Student loans (though debt is a big issue) help people go to school. Lots of folks have gotten life saving medical care thanks to the new mandates. And when someone commits a crime against me, I have a reasonable (albeit laborious) chance of being able to seek redress. I can blog my opinions without being worried about getting my hands chopped off and sometimes we even manage to find ways to help other countries. Are there LOTS of problems with the government, yup! But imo, there are also good things that come out of it, including the ability to debate issues like the ones this comment thread started to be about.
Also, I know several people with Volts who adore them and are on waiting lists for them. 🙂 Including the CEO of the big company I work for. (I don’t work for the Catholic Church, though I know the sentence that made it sound like I did.)
Also, also, while we USE as lot of oil as a country, whether or not we need to is (clearly by the national dialogue) debatable. Oil does do damage and is expensive to get and produce. It also keeps us dependent on countries we’d otherwise not deal with on such an intimate level. Not saying that we should give it up cold turkey, but investing in it does make sense from a long term strategy point of view.
I’m sorry that you know so many people who don’t want to work and who just want the government to give them things for free, but the people I choose to surround myself with are generally hard working people who don’t mind delaying gratification for future goals and who’d just like to see life be as equitable as possible for as many people as possible.
Look, I’m not trying to present myself as a mean spirited comic strip black cloud who takes delight in raining on someone’s parade here, But I do think you really owe it to yourself to get at least some limited albeit likely unwanted exposure to an opposing view (and from the clues you’ve given here, something you certainly are not getting from your like-thinking volt driving sugar plumb fairy minded friends), otherwise you’ll stay stuck reciting those homily’s ‘n platitudes you’ve seen on pillows as hand stitched lettered embroidery, and repeating worn out examples of the greatness of government as exemplified by all them good things it does by way of police protection, student loans, roads, schools, bridges, providing for healthy drinking water, caring for the old folks plus legislated safe-guards against the runamuk abuses of capitalism such as child labor laws, and the like ( elementary stuff really btw, considering nazi germany did those thing too. They also had social security way before we did.). Besides, I read Oliver Twist too and I was easily as moved by it as you were, I bet.
Yeah, there’s a fundamental disagreement between us as it relates to our views on the role of government alright. I’m no anarchist, however. I’m juss fine with it (gubmint), in fact, so long as it operates within its constitutional limits as defined by the founders, who, by the way, were revolutionaries and free thinking men (okay, forget about slavery for a moment) determined to institutionalize limits upon and protections *from* government after suffering under a succession of often tyrannical divine right european plumed perfumed lace hanky snuff box monarchs, a reestablishment of which, or some facsime like it they feared more than any foreign boogeyman. And when it (gubmint) focuses on duties within its originally constituted purview (which it never has in my lifetime), like in the instances of those things you mention? I’m fine with it.
As for taxes, those rich people you seem to resent so much (as an aside here, what do you consider rich btw, cuz you may be talkin about me?) pay a heckuva lot more than you do regardless of the percentage (a thing that’s also a bogus government conspired intentional class warfare agitating lie you bit the hook on), and without them under the current tax system those bridges wouldn’t exist, and the rest of us would be pretty much relegated to sharing a lifestyle with the Amish.
But really, besides all that, I mean apart from the issue of birth control, you know how I know that the essence of how we think and what we believe in are fundamentally different?
You said it yourself when you referred to being happily grateful for living under a government which allowed you your blog and to voice your opinion regardless of what it is, without dropping you into the Soylent Green hopper (I think they’d be tickled about your opinion, so you’re safe)… while I myself agree with the founders, that that right, plus certain fundamental others are intrinsic rights of man inherited from God.
Do yourself a favor, sis, please. Read play-write David Mamet’s book “The Secret Knowledge”. It’s a short easy read you can get through in a day. Then you tube search Milton Friedman which’ll take up even less of your time, and hear what he says about some of these economic issues.
You can be educated in a day and a half, for free even if you go to the library.
It could change your life.
P.S. I hate tuh be the news bearer of an ill tide here, but you might wanna inform your CEO that he’s off the Volt list till further notice. Which may be just as well.
They halted production on em you see .
Besides the fact that almost nobody wants em, seems there’s an additional matter of a design flaw in their construction that makes em about as likely to catch fire as a pile of kerosene soaked rags next tuh a roaring fireplace.
Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean that I haven’t thought long and hard about these issues. One of my closest friends is about as far from me politically as one can be and we have plenty of great conversations where we talk about our respective points of view. It’s sad to me that just because I’m not swayed by this discuss, you assume that I have no ability to think for myself. Especially since I’ve been able to have this conversation without reverting to hyperbole or name calling as you have to try and make my points.
I also don’t resent rich people. Yes, I made a joke about businessmen, but businessmen are also good at getting out of paying taxes. I have friends and relatives who are rich and I have friends and relatives who are poor. All those people are hard working people and I do not begrudge the rich ones their money at all. What did I say that made it sound like I resent the rich?
And yes, I am grateful for the good things the government does and I am grateful that the government doesn’t usurp those natural laws. By the accident of my birth I live here and I think that’s pretty awesome. Whether or not people should have certain rights doesn’t mean that it’s not incredibly easy for them to have simply been born in the wrong place at the wrong time. That’s not to say that I don’t hope that the bad things about the government change. I think it’s okay to be happy about good things (even if they should exist anyway) while working to address the bad ones.
Only we’re running out of time.
I don’t recall any name calling other than some heart felt (and richly deserved) disparagement of a government who’s now into inspecting kids’ lunch boxes.
I’m not going to convince you, that’s obvious. Certainly not if your friend hasn’t already…. He or she must be one frustrated individual.
I can only suggest you get more friends.
Read that book (Mamet’s), and listen to a bit of Friedman.
Both former liberals who suddenly caught an epiphanous clarifying glimmer.
If you haven’t seen it, rent “Glengarry Glen Ross” or get it from the library. The film version of Mamet’s play with Al Pacino and Jack Lemmon. Written in his leftist anti capitalist days as a sorta homage to Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.” It’s a great film with a lotta truth in it, without being *the* truth as Mamet came to realize.
Do me that favor and yourself one at the same time.
Hey, I’m reading your blog (you’re a very good writer by the way).
Best regards.
But the government is not inspecting kids’ lunch boxes. I’m totally fine discussing whether or not the government is over-stepping its bounds, but that is impossible to do when one half of the arguing party is citing as evidence things that are not actually happening. It’s also difficult to discuss these things when the other party continues to choose not to answer very direct questions that were asked so that I might better understand their point of view.
Again, I find it insulting that you think that because I don’t agree with you that there must be something deficient about me or my friends. I don’t agree with lots of people, but I can still respect them. I can also assume that they, like me, have thought about their opinions and beliefs and have good reasons for believing them. My job is not to change their mind, just to try and understand where they’re coming from. For every opinion, there are great minds that agree with it and great minds who do not.
But they are. And sure it did. An incident in North Carolina. Overzealous bureaucrat in an over stretch of his authorty in a putitive attempt to enforce dept of ag guidlines on what constitutes a sanctioned nutricious by Big Brother school lunch against a four year old:
http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=8762
I don’t recall dodging any questions(you have any I promise to answer every one), or suggesting you were wrong soley because you disagree with me. Just wrong on your own merit by what you said. Only merely my opinion, and hey, admitedly perhaps a wrong one at that… the product of something I can’t control maybe, like screwed up brain chemistry (which has actually been alleged in an article by a leftist scientist). Yet there may be hope for me… with the proper therapy I might be cured. Maybe by a round of hypnosis, some psychotropic drugs, a month in the hole on bread and water and a long stretch in a reeducation camp with my head shaved listening to ed asner and nancy pelosi tapes, and charlie sheen’s theory on 9/11.
Fact is, I usta think very much like you and your friends (isn’t that always the way though?).
If I could go back in time and kick that kid in the keester I would do it. But knowing me then, I wouldna listened.
I’m not insulted that you called my a liar either, and I meant no disparagement to you and your friends. Honestly.
“Easy” isn’t just a relative term, it’s a subjective one. And what’s “fair,” and what’s “reasonable”?
Those are too.
****But what’s “affordable”, now that isn’t***
Thank you. You actually get it. Affordable isn’t subjective, it’s actual. If you can’t afford something you can’t have it. If it’s a house in a nice neighborhood, that’s not a problem. You don’t have the money, you don’t move in. That’s life. But when it comes to medicine, which you have yet to address the fact that birth control pills are used for medicinal purposes that have nothing to do with birth control, then it’s not life… it’s life or death.
So where do we draw the line? We draw the line at things that are health related and non-cosmetic/non vanity related. Viagra is vanity/recreation related. Hopefully I’ll never need it, but even if I do ever need “help”, I won’t die without it. But having known many woman who’s monthly cycle’s were debilitating from the pain, who only found relief from the regulating effect of birth control pills, I consider it medicine as much as a convenience. And those women are among the milder medical needs met by birth control pills. Until people who don’t want to “fund” other people’s birth control pills address the medicinal.issue, they are intentionally ignoring the facts to hold on to “their” truth. Oh, but to restate the original pint: making something unaffordable is restricting access. There is no debating that.
Sounds great Fred. I hope you let your representatives in congress know that it’s all or nothing. Because I think that is a major part of the problem that women have with how these issues are being approached. All the legislation that is introduced directly address women and their bodies. To do things your way, we need to:
– Make it a fine-able offense for a man to have sex without a condom.
– Make it a jail-able offense for a man to impregnate a woman he is not married to.
– Make it illegal for health care providers to pay for Viagra and vasectomies. (Yes, this is legislating against the free market, but so is not letting religious organizations provide birth control for women – remember, all or nothing).
Now none of these “financial/political” issues address the fact that birth control often serves as medicine that treats health/life threatening illnesses that are totally unrelated to sexual intercourse. There is nothing equivalent to this for drugs that have a sexual aid function in men. Legislation that says these women can’t use birth control is like legislation that says they can’t have an abortion if having a baby is a direct threat to their life. Hopefully we aren’t at a point where our country can deny supported access to life-saving medication for any reason. That would make those countries that use those nasty socialized medicine systems look more humane than us… and we don’t want to project that wrong image, do we?
As as for not paying for birth control for someone who goes to an expensive college, should we also stop providing tax breaks to people who are already rich. I don’t want my tax money covering the cost of building bridges for rich people to go to work if they don’t have to pay the same percentage. My point in saying that is, make it fair. All or nothing. But don’t single-out women. And if you aren’t sending letters to your senators and congressmen to get them to push all or nothing legislation, all you’re doing is making statements to push buttons on people’s emotions.
Obviously, and I do mean OBVIOUSLY, you never got the memo that a) birth control (i.e., prevention of a pregnancy) is against God’s will, as only HE controls those things, and therefore must be outlawed, and that b) Rush is God’s conduit here on earth. Obviously. Check your spam folder.
“Wow, thank goodness for relatively easy access to birth control. Now, couples can have sex if they want to and significantly reduce the likelihood that they’re going to end up pregnant if they don’t want to be pregnant. And since people have abortions when they don’t want to be pregnant, and since I am pro-life, I am happy that couples can get the protection that they need so that fewer people have to have abortions.”
That makes too much sense.
“The only thing dudes are sleeping with these days are snazzy body pillows!” yep, i did it. i quoted you in your own blog comments. thanks for the laugh!
See, I found it truly amazing that the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the contraceptive coverage rule called an all-male panel. I always wondered what it was like to live in the 1920’s (albeit in Paris hanging with Fitzgerald, Hemingway & the like) and now I know. Why do women need to represent women’s views? Next thing you know, women will want to vote! (side not, somebody told me that happened already. oops).
There isn’t much in this country the government should hand out for free. Though, if it makes any difference, those pesky Canadians have universal health care – and also didn’t have a housing crisis, still have low unemployment & were relatively unharmed during the recession – so from 2007 on our Government has had some serious explaining to do.
But, come on, can’t we all agree if we’re going to talk about an issue that represented only women, maybe some of the panel should have had breasts?
This just in from Arizona, their birth control bill would allow employers to decline to provide birth control coverage on medical plans if they have moral and/or religious objections. Women who want to have those employers cover birth control would have to prove to the employers there is a medical reason for the contraception.
The only thing I want to know is this: Is Viagra covered under health care plans in Arizona?
And, as far as the “condom” argument goes, it’s a two-way street BUT women – in my opinion – are trying to be responsible when they use birth control because condom’s aren’t always effective.
I say, until men have menstrual cycles, labor pains, breast feedings and the like then nobody, not religious or otherwise, should dictate their health insurance policy that they’re already paying for.
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