Hmmm... maybe that explains why they're less that outraged when children are summarily executed in their schoolrooms. It's not mass murder - it's just property damage.
Bonus points, of course, because it's someone else's "property."
So... If I "own" my child, does that ownership relegate him/her to the status of a pet? Does that give me the power of life and death over that child? Abuse? So the state has no authority at all? Just asking before the inevitable court cases.
So we look horridly at the rhetoric of people who claim to “own” their children and abhor the demands for ownership of AR 15s and other weapons of war. But we own the results of the elections in which we refuse to get engaged. These law makers are there because they are either supported by the voters who believe the same stuff or inadvertently by the people who sit out and don’t vote in local, state or national elections. If we want change we must do everything we can to get voters out to support the values we hold. Please tell me that they are not the majority. Instead, I believe they are the results of apathy and a refusal to see the results of that apathy.
Yes, but extreme gerrymandering is a main cause of this. There are many conservatives and ardent Republicans who are in favor of a woman's right to choose, and better gun laws, but gerrymandering has allowed the most extreme politicians to be elected to seats without competition. We can no longer state that we get the politicians we deserve, because the spots on the dice have been altered and voters' wishes are no longer taken into account.
I totally agree. I live in heavily gerrymandered Ohio whose maps were redrawn several times. Because of gerrymandering, the Republican party boasts supermajorities in the Ohio House and Senate.This party has brazenly ignored a series of 4-3 rulings from the Ohio Supreme Court that their legislative and Congressional redistricting maps this year are unconstitutional.I hold that our elections are not valid because of these illegal maps. So much corruption in this state and Democrats do not have a chance here at the polls.
You can't overstate the ill effects of gerrymandering, Jennifer. I have always taken a kneejerk dim view of it as a perfidious practice of course, but I think it was something you posted that suddenly opened my eyes to just how malignant the effect it. *That's* why so many state legislatures now can freely embrace ALEC's dictates rather than heed voters' wishes. The consequences are so close to a critical mass—if not already there—this nation may be on the brink—seriously. Please keep it up!
This is inevitably going to come down to mass protests on the part of those who are gerrymandered out of their rights. It is going to get a lot worse before it improves. It is also why we must do what we can, everything we can, to get significant numbers of people out to vote to remove the false majority from government.
I also believe we are in grave danger because of the makeup of the supreme court. Write to the White House every day to get the President to expand the court. It is imperative if we are to right this ship and regain the civil rights the authoritarian movement is gradually taking away.
Michigan is a Democratic Trifecta now after we petitioned, voted for and established fair districts for 2020. In 2009, my Republican state representative (mistaking my $25 donation to his campaign as a conservative endorsement), gleefully told me how they had "gerrymandered this state so badly those damn Democrats will never win again." And so it was in 2010. Thanks to many smart and hardworking folks, our ballot initiative was successful!
Right. You "own" your children, but NOT your body! Your fetus is owned by the state until you give birth and then...do they transfer ownership rights to you?
A kind of woman-hating Theater of the Absurd and Oppression. I don't think this can possibly proceed without a righteous backlash, led by women but with everyone invited to participate. These (extensive expletives deleted) are unwittingly creating that backlash.
China’s hardcore control over woman created a backlash in the next generation where young woman said NO to having babies at all. They knew that having a baby gave too much power to the bureaucrats.
In the United States the public is catching up with Lucian Truscott and others that freedom is being taken away by Republicans who want absolute control over women.
Audiea, my (adult) daughter has made the conscious decision not to have any children. Although this means I will never have the pleasure of grandchildren, I completely understand and support her decision.
The same with my two daughters. They both told their dad and I that they did not want to bring children into this world. They do not want have to grieve for them if they are killed or maimed. I totally get it. I always wanted to be a grandmother but it’s alright. I respect their decision.
The undercurrent, of course, is the usual. White evangelicals get the final say over their children. Also white evangelicals get the final say over our children as well. Because the only people who have the right values are white evangelicals.
It's predestination unfolding in front of our very eyes! The evangelicals are the Elect, as God as predestined them to be ; everyone else, the worthless, evil, army of the Damned, destined for hellfire, and being tormented for eternity by grotesque imps with pitchforks.
Of course this hardly a new battle of ideas with deadly serious real world consequences:
Let's indulge this "ownership" nonsense for a moment. One attribute/benefit of "ownership" is the ability to control the "asset"; hence the apt analogies to "The Handmaid's Tale". One concomitant attribute/duty of control or ownership is responsibility for the asset. So, send sperm source daddy to jail if junior breaks the law. Or if junior shoots up a school. It will never happen. Power without responsibility, the bedrock of authoritarianism.
LKT - You have done it again. Opened eyes to what is obvious if we just look closely enough and consider what it all truly means. You are a truth teller and a restater of what should he obvious to us all. Thank you.
BTW Love the comment about machine gunned children below. It seems Republicans want total control of women's bodies and children's minds. They want "unwanted" children to face unnecessary struggles in life by not providing any support for them and they see women as breeders for the children that they proclaim they own.
You mean, making the arrangements codified in law, which these people already try to arrange. Sure, they would rush into that in a picosecond, forbidding any Capulet to consort and frolic with any Montague --- except it would be based on religion, race as defined by skin color, income and class, etc.
I hope convincing people who find this “abhorrent ownership” an issue will VOTE. VOTE VOTE! The thought that the “owners” are in the majority has me searching for sanctuary. If New York and its tri state neighbors ever turn RED, I’m out.
There are societies and cultures where men do have the right of life or death over mostly females. 'Owning' women and children and others as property is OK with the reichwing provided the slaves are POC.The Rethugs also want to end any government sponsored program that helps people. They have identified themselves as uncivilized barbarians devoid of what the rest of us consider morality. There can't and won't be any compromise with them. It's a fool's errand. We can't live with them, but we certainly can live without them. Too bad Australia is already populated by Great Britain's exiles. With climate change perhaps Antarctica might become available. Mars is even better.
Extrapolating that...it calls to mind an old Star Trek episode "Space Seed" where some genetically engineered "super humans" were captured and sent to a desolate planet as punishment via a space ship named the "Botany Bay" (named for the British penal colony in Australia) after they raised rebellion and caused great suffering and chaos. Sounds VERY familiar, doesn't it? The punishment didn't "reform" the miscreants...it made them even worse....and they didn't stay on their desolate isolated planet.
I am no mental health professional, but I do know that trying to comprehend people who assert an irrational, self-contradictory, incredibly dogmatic ideology, as they simultaneously insist that very same ideology is eminently, obviously, indisputably infused with sweet reason, contains no contradictions, and is rejected only by godless wretches and fools, is one hell of an intellectual task.
Let the psychologists do their best, it won't be easy!
I chose not to watch "The Handmaid's Tale," for reasons outlined in Mr. T.'s post. We seem to be on the way to living it, in any case, so who needs to see it twice? The Ms. Bruce he mentions wrote pejoratively of things as they are now: “... providing birth control, abortion, mental health services, sexual assault treatment, drug and alcohol treatment, treatment for infectious diseases and more. Make no mistake, none of this has anything to do with children’s health and everything to do with stripping away the natural and expected and legal right of parents to have first and final say over what their minor children will and will not do." Alas, she is out of her fucking mind if she sees birth control, abortion, mental health services, sexual assault treatment, drug and alcohol treatment, and treatment for infectious diseases as the state overstepping. Would she have a very young girl receive no treatment for sexual assault? No treatment by an ID doc? No drug or alcohol treatment? In Florida, parents "in control" of their children's' curriculum means ONE parent can make a book unavailable - even without reading it! Somewhere, George Orwell is laughing up his sleeve. And Jesus is on His way to drink gin from the cat dish.
Yeah, her pained litany of complaints seems to me something which, in a very complicated society, people could rightfully fund with tax monies, even if they hoped there was less need for it. We pay taxes for any number of services and public goods we don't personally use.
There are bitter feelings elicited over school board positions, but never in my decades-long involvement (student, teacher, parent), l have never seen such high stakes bickering!
As mentioned before, my grandparents arrived as refugees fleeing poverty and persecution. My parents were 1st generation born here and both were the first in their families to complete college and graduate school.
The idea of disposing of public education is not unique, but the need is greater than ever to protect and maintain a strong program of education! Without exaggeration, our future depends on this.
I talked to a local friend yesterday who informed me that the two "we own our children" women I removed from my porch are among the arch-conservatives who regularly take over the local school board meetings, filibustering their comments and questions so no one gets to speak but them. So much for running because "the school board doesn't listen to us."
Hmmm... maybe that explains why they're less that outraged when children are summarily executed in their schoolrooms. It's not mass murder - it's just property damage.
Bonus points, of course, because it's someone else's "property."
So... If I "own" my child, does that ownership relegate him/her to the status of a pet? Does that give me the power of life and death over that child? Abuse? So the state has no authority at all? Just asking before the inevitable court cases.
So we look horridly at the rhetoric of people who claim to “own” their children and abhor the demands for ownership of AR 15s and other weapons of war. But we own the results of the elections in which we refuse to get engaged. These law makers are there because they are either supported by the voters who believe the same stuff or inadvertently by the people who sit out and don’t vote in local, state or national elections. If we want change we must do everything we can to get voters out to support the values we hold. Please tell me that they are not the majority. Instead, I believe they are the results of apathy and a refusal to see the results of that apathy.
Yes, but extreme gerrymandering is a main cause of this. There are many conservatives and ardent Republicans who are in favor of a woman's right to choose, and better gun laws, but gerrymandering has allowed the most extreme politicians to be elected to seats without competition. We can no longer state that we get the politicians we deserve, because the spots on the dice have been altered and voters' wishes are no longer taken into account.
I totally agree. I live in heavily gerrymandered Ohio whose maps were redrawn several times. Because of gerrymandering, the Republican party boasts supermajorities in the Ohio House and Senate.This party has brazenly ignored a series of 4-3 rulings from the Ohio Supreme Court that their legislative and Congressional redistricting maps this year are unconstitutional.I hold that our elections are not valid because of these illegal maps. So much corruption in this state and Democrats do not have a chance here at the polls.
You can't overstate the ill effects of gerrymandering, Jennifer. I have always taken a kneejerk dim view of it as a perfidious practice of course, but I think it was something you posted that suddenly opened my eyes to just how malignant the effect it. *That's* why so many state legislatures now can freely embrace ALEC's dictates rather than heed voters' wishes. The consequences are so close to a critical mass—if not already there—this nation may be on the brink—seriously. Please keep it up!
This is inevitably going to come down to mass protests on the part of those who are gerrymandered out of their rights. It is going to get a lot worse before it improves. It is also why we must do what we can, everything we can, to get significant numbers of people out to vote to remove the false majority from government.
I also believe we are in grave danger because of the makeup of the supreme court. Write to the White House every day to get the President to expand the court. It is imperative if we are to right this ship and regain the civil rights the authoritarian movement is gradually taking away.
Michigan is a Democratic Trifecta now after we petitioned, voted for and established fair districts for 2020. In 2009, my Republican state representative (mistaking my $25 donation to his campaign as a conservative endorsement), gleefully told me how they had "gerrymandered this state so badly those damn Democrats will never win again." And so it was in 2010. Thanks to many smart and hardworking folks, our ballot initiative was successful!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Michigan_Proposal_2
Right. You "own" your children, but NOT your body! Your fetus is owned by the state until you give birth and then...do they transfer ownership rights to you?
A kind of woman-hating Theater of the Absurd and Oppression. I don't think this can possibly proceed without a righteous backlash, led by women but with everyone invited to participate. These (extensive expletives deleted) are unwittingly creating that backlash.
China’s hardcore control over woman created a backlash in the next generation where young woman said NO to having babies at all. They knew that having a baby gave too much power to the bureaucrats.
In the United States the public is catching up with Lucian Truscott and others that freedom is being taken away by Republicans who want absolute control over women.
Audiea, my (adult) daughter has made the conscious decision not to have any children. Although this means I will never have the pleasure of grandchildren, I completely understand and support her decision.
The same with my two daughters. They both told their dad and I that they did not want to bring children into this world. They do not want have to grieve for them if they are killed or maimed. I totally get it. I always wanted to be a grandmother but it’s alright. I respect their decision.
The undercurrent, of course, is the usual. White evangelicals get the final say over their children. Also white evangelicals get the final say over our children as well. Because the only people who have the right values are white evangelicals.
It's predestination unfolding in front of our very eyes! The evangelicals are the Elect, as God as predestined them to be ; everyone else, the worthless, evil, army of the Damned, destined for hellfire, and being tormented for eternity by grotesque imps with pitchforks.
Of course this hardly a new battle of ideas with deadly serious real world consequences:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_G._Ingersoll
Let's indulge this "ownership" nonsense for a moment. One attribute/benefit of "ownership" is the ability to control the "asset"; hence the apt analogies to "The Handmaid's Tale". One concomitant attribute/duty of control or ownership is responsibility for the asset. So, send sperm source daddy to jail if junior breaks the law. Or if junior shoots up a school. It will never happen. Power without responsibility, the bedrock of authoritarianism.
The Handmaid’s Tale made real. The extraordinary means and hypocritical mental gymnastics these people indulge in is beyond The Tale by far
LKT - You have done it again. Opened eyes to what is obvious if we just look closely enough and consider what it all truly means. You are a truth teller and a restater of what should he obvious to us all. Thank you.
BTW Love the comment about machine gunned children below. It seems Republicans want total control of women's bodies and children's minds. They want "unwanted" children to face unnecessary struggles in life by not providing any support for them and they see women as breeders for the children that they proclaim they own.
And, next? Arranged marriages?
Good one. Wish I had thought of it.
You mean, making the arrangements codified in law, which these people already try to arrange. Sure, they would rush into that in a picosecond, forbidding any Capulet to consort and frolic with any Montague --- except it would be based on religion, race as defined by skin color, income and class, etc.
I knew someone whose parents were extremely angry because she married a Yankee (a man who was not from the South--not a baseball player).
I hope convincing people who find this “abhorrent ownership” an issue will VOTE. VOTE VOTE! The thought that the “owners” are in the majority has me searching for sanctuary. If New York and its tri state neighbors ever turn RED, I’m out.
Gerrymandering needs to be stopped. Here is how Michigan did it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Michigan_Proposal_2
There are societies and cultures where men do have the right of life or death over mostly females. 'Owning' women and children and others as property is OK with the reichwing provided the slaves are POC.The Rethugs also want to end any government sponsored program that helps people. They have identified themselves as uncivilized barbarians devoid of what the rest of us consider morality. There can't and won't be any compromise with them. It's a fool's errand. We can't live with them, but we certainly can live without them. Too bad Australia is already populated by Great Britain's exiles. With climate change perhaps Antarctica might become available. Mars is even better.
Extrapolating that...it calls to mind an old Star Trek episode "Space Seed" where some genetically engineered "super humans" were captured and sent to a desolate planet as punishment via a space ship named the "Botany Bay" (named for the British penal colony in Australia) after they raised rebellion and caused great suffering and chaos. Sounds VERY familiar, doesn't it? The punishment didn't "reform" the miscreants...it made them even worse....and they didn't stay on their desolate isolated planet.
Okay then...beam me up!
Mental health professionals out there, please help us understand these people. A weary nation is trying to get out of this fog.
I am no mental health professional, but I do know that trying to comprehend people who assert an irrational, self-contradictory, incredibly dogmatic ideology, as they simultaneously insist that very same ideology is eminently, obviously, indisputably infused with sweet reason, contains no contradictions, and is rejected only by godless wretches and fools, is one hell of an intellectual task.
Let the psychologists do their best, it won't be easy!
Maybe we shouldn't have closed all those state mental hospitals.
There are a hell of a lot of Repugnants we could send to those mental hospitals and throw away the keys.
Ignorance, the root and the stem of every evil. ~Plato.
The people you so succinctly and graphically captured prefer ~Play-Doh
I chose not to watch "The Handmaid's Tale," for reasons outlined in Mr. T.'s post. We seem to be on the way to living it, in any case, so who needs to see it twice? The Ms. Bruce he mentions wrote pejoratively of things as they are now: “... providing birth control, abortion, mental health services, sexual assault treatment, drug and alcohol treatment, treatment for infectious diseases and more. Make no mistake, none of this has anything to do with children’s health and everything to do with stripping away the natural and expected and legal right of parents to have first and final say over what their minor children will and will not do." Alas, she is out of her fucking mind if she sees birth control, abortion, mental health services, sexual assault treatment, drug and alcohol treatment, and treatment for infectious diseases as the state overstepping. Would she have a very young girl receive no treatment for sexual assault? No treatment by an ID doc? No drug or alcohol treatment? In Florida, parents "in control" of their children's' curriculum means ONE parent can make a book unavailable - even without reading it! Somewhere, George Orwell is laughing up his sleeve. And Jesus is on His way to drink gin from the cat dish.
And what would the school board do if a parent forbid her child from reading the Bible?
Yeah, her pained litany of complaints seems to me something which, in a very complicated society, people could rightfully fund with tax monies, even if they hoped there was less need for it. We pay taxes for any number of services and public goods we don't personally use.
Them: We own our children, so we get to decide what they learn.
Me: Sure.
Them: We also get to decide what your children learn.
Me: F#*k off.
There are bitter feelings elicited over school board positions, but never in my decades-long involvement (student, teacher, parent), l have never seen such high stakes bickering!
As mentioned before, my grandparents arrived as refugees fleeing poverty and persecution. My parents were 1st generation born here and both were the first in their families to complete college and graduate school.
The idea of disposing of public education is not unique, but the need is greater than ever to protect and maintain a strong program of education! Without exaggeration, our future depends on this.
I talked to a local friend yesterday who informed me that the two "we own our children" women I removed from my porch are among the arch-conservatives who regularly take over the local school board meetings, filibustering their comments and questions so no one gets to speak but them. So much for running because "the school board doesn't listen to us."