Morality (?), Legislated
Well, the Holy War has begun.
My international profile is pretty low, and nobody seemed to care about Rumsfeld yanking Iceland's National Defense out from under them with next-to-no warning, so I'm back to domestic issues that I have a little more knowledge of - specifically the conservative war against sex and sexual rights.
Now, I have some history with this method of dealing with sexual issues - particularly with teens. When I was in High School (Bartlesville High School, in Bartlesville, OK) our principal, Dr. Boyles, made a forceful editorial choice on the school newspaper, The Fourth Estate, in order to block an article by one of my good friends, about a girl in the school with HIV, who was warning that the problem could affect even those in as seemingly an insular town as Bartlesville. To make myself clear, the girl in the article was anonymous (I was one of the reporters closest friends and I still have no clue as to who it was) and the article was an interview with her at the subjects insistence, as oposed to a paranoid expose meant to expose the poor young woman.
Anyway, when my friend protested, Dr. Boyles threatened her that she wouldn't be allowed to graduate if she pursued the story any further by way of making the editorial decision a known incident. Well, my friend has long since graduated, and Dr. Boyles, who served as Principal for the school administration of Bartlesville High Scool during the 1998-1999 school year, justified her reasoning as being that she didn't want people to be alarmed about the idea that AIDS might be infecting the teens. That it might send the wrong message about the schools and the town. I mention her name and resume material as often as I have because I hoipe that anyone researching her background will know that she faught to put children's lives at stake in order to preserve her own image. Moving on.
In South Dakota, I'll say what I've said before. Not only is this a rights issue, but putting girls under the age of consent in a legal obligation to protect the compensurary "sex receipt" of their legal victimization is screwed up enough, but then expanding the issue to assault-style rape cases is ridiculous. Strangely enough, part of me still has faith that the Supremem Court will uphold Roe. After all, they said they would, but who can give a reason to trust them? It's not like they have accountability for their decisions anymore.
In Missouri, we have a clear case of legislating morality, but it's more sinister than that. I know this region of the country very well, and there's probably more promiscuity going on there than there is in most colleges. Is that an issue to be addressed? Surely. Should abstinence be part of the program? Absolutely. But the current system there is trying to find a way to take away the rights of the sexually active (i.e. 98% of all legally-aged citizens) while knowing that they can't legislate against sex itself, and doing it in a way so as to paint any who would go against them as disease-ridden whores. (Admitting my own bias, this is a large part of the reason that I find the conservative movement, and really the whole republican party, to be such a classy outfit, but I haven't even gotten to the best part yet!)
The federal GOP is blocking the availability of a "100%" efficient HPV vaccine, because of the worry that it's availability would lead to promiscuity. Again, as I've said before, this is like banning airbags because they might lead to reckless driving. 4000 women die every year due to HPV-related cervical cancer. That's 1000 more people than died in the September 11th attacks. Per year. Because the conservative movement believes so strongly that sex is the ultimate of all evils that it refuses to allow it's citizens any safeguards against it's negative effects.
I'm sorry that this has come out as the polemic that it ended up as, but I'm past the point of polite, pretend-objectivity on this matter. Ever since Bush came into power, the conservatives have taken the effort to destroy every liberty they could get their hands on, and I'm not going to pretend to politely stand for it anymore.
However, I'm requesting that anyone with a differing opinion, because I respect everyone who regulalry comments here, to convince me otherwise. As far as I can tell, the republican-controlled gowernment has officially become fascist. Convince me I'm wrong.
Update: The situation in Missouri is much worse than I thought.
My international profile is pretty low, and nobody seemed to care about Rumsfeld yanking Iceland's National Defense out from under them with next-to-no warning, so I'm back to domestic issues that I have a little more knowledge of - specifically the conservative war against sex and sexual rights.
Now, I have some history with this method of dealing with sexual issues - particularly with teens. When I was in High School (Bartlesville High School, in Bartlesville, OK) our principal, Dr. Boyles, made a forceful editorial choice on the school newspaper, The Fourth Estate, in order to block an article by one of my good friends, about a girl in the school with HIV, who was warning that the problem could affect even those in as seemingly an insular town as Bartlesville. To make myself clear, the girl in the article was anonymous (I was one of the reporters closest friends and I still have no clue as to who it was) and the article was an interview with her at the subjects insistence, as oposed to a paranoid expose meant to expose the poor young woman.
Anyway, when my friend protested, Dr. Boyles threatened her that she wouldn't be allowed to graduate if she pursued the story any further by way of making the editorial decision a known incident. Well, my friend has long since graduated, and Dr. Boyles, who served as Principal for the school administration of Bartlesville High Scool during the 1998-1999 school year, justified her reasoning as being that she didn't want people to be alarmed about the idea that AIDS might be infecting the teens. That it might send the wrong message about the schools and the town. I mention her name and resume material as often as I have because I hoipe that anyone researching her background will know that she faught to put children's lives at stake in order to preserve her own image. Moving on.
In South Dakota, I'll say what I've said before. Not only is this a rights issue, but putting girls under the age of consent in a legal obligation to protect the compensurary "sex receipt" of their legal victimization is screwed up enough, but then expanding the issue to assault-style rape cases is ridiculous. Strangely enough, part of me still has faith that the Supremem Court will uphold Roe. After all, they said they would, but who can give a reason to trust them? It's not like they have accountability for their decisions anymore.
In Missouri, we have a clear case of legislating morality, but it's more sinister than that. I know this region of the country very well, and there's probably more promiscuity going on there than there is in most colleges. Is that an issue to be addressed? Surely. Should abstinence be part of the program? Absolutely. But the current system there is trying to find a way to take away the rights of the sexually active (i.e. 98% of all legally-aged citizens) while knowing that they can't legislate against sex itself, and doing it in a way so as to paint any who would go against them as disease-ridden whores. (Admitting my own bias, this is a large part of the reason that I find the conservative movement, and really the whole republican party, to be such a classy outfit, but I haven't even gotten to the best part yet!)
The federal GOP is blocking the availability of a "100%" efficient HPV vaccine, because of the worry that it's availability would lead to promiscuity. Again, as I've said before, this is like banning airbags because they might lead to reckless driving. 4000 women die every year due to HPV-related cervical cancer. That's 1000 more people than died in the September 11th attacks. Per year. Because the conservative movement believes so strongly that sex is the ultimate of all evils that it refuses to allow it's citizens any safeguards against it's negative effects.
I'm sorry that this has come out as the polemic that it ended up as, but I'm past the point of polite, pretend-objectivity on this matter. Ever since Bush came into power, the conservatives have taken the effort to destroy every liberty they could get their hands on, and I'm not going to pretend to politely stand for it anymore.
However, I'm requesting that anyone with a differing opinion, because I respect everyone who regulalry comments here, to convince me otherwise. As far as I can tell, the republican-controlled gowernment has officially become fascist. Convince me I'm wrong.
Update: The situation in Missouri is much worse than I thought.
posted by Pascals Bookie @ 10:53 PM
5 Comments:
As a disease ridden whore and fascist to boot, I resent your comments!
The state of affairs regarding practical sex education and prevention in this country is extremely depressing, and i could rant for days....
However, I enjoyed an article yesterday about how Mississippi has banned the sale of sex toys, found
here. Yes, the states with one of the lowest literacy rates, highest poverty and obesity rates, and a state where you can buy a gun at a gun show without a waiting period, has found the real cause of their problems: dildos. At the risk of turning this site a little more blue-ish, I would suggest to the good people of Mississippi that perhaps a little more working out with the banned toys might aid in their obesity problem.
I just wanted to let you know that I am going to comment on this at length, I just don't have the time to do it justice right now. But that day is coming!
They're not fascists.
What they are are radical ideologues who have come to view 'conservatism' and its constituent goals as tenets of faith.
As I've said above in discussing talk radio, the intent really seems to be to divide the entire nation into rival camps! Everyone in one camp has to believe - or act as though they believe - one set of rules and principles, while the other camp must follow the exact mirror image.
This is the same malarkey behind "red states" and "blue states." Are we serious? In most states, the presidential margins were within 40% and 60% for the winner and loser. That is, red states are plenty blue and blue are plenty red.
But your question was about this government. Yes, it is controlled by Republicans and yes, they have gone off the rails.
Since they no longer have defined, guiding principles (limited government? individual liberty? fiscal sanity? HA!), they've been forced to make adherence to "the rules" a vital part of being a "true conservative."
So you get a lot of jingoism and a lot of bad ideas.
As a conservative who doesn't feel this way, I'm just as upset as you.
This comment is to draw attention to the update on the main post. I'm still not confident at my sillz as to playing with html without a handy interface, but y'all need to read the article.
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