Horses And Bayonets And Context, Oh My!

It's nearing the end of the latest election cycle and until now I've been able to maintain my cool by letting my anger out 140 characters at a time, but today a bayonet finally broke this horse's back.

Politicians and partisan media hacks for months have been grabbing out of context soundbites and running wild with them and that is nothing new; my problem is that the pathetically uninformed voter then goes out and spews out false aural sewage as though it was stone writ upon Mount Sinai and they themselves were there to witness the burning bush. Are we all just that fucking stupid?

From Big Bird to women in binders and not optimal to horses and bayonets, the Presidential candidates have both been attacked continually for the words they've spoken, though almost never with the original context intact.

When Mitt Romney said he loved Big Bird, but would cut PBS, he was simply trying to put forth his fiscally conservative vision for America. He was not trying to say PBS or Big Bird are the devil. When Mitt said he was handed binders full of women, he didn't mean he was literally handed a harem of women inside a magic box that would burst out if he merely rubbed the book properly. CNN, MSNBC, and other left wingnuts grabbed at these "gaffs" and attempted to paint a picture to sway the uninformed idiot from voting for Romney.

Likewise, Fox and other right wingnuts completely ignored the question Jon Stewart asked just prior, and also the way in which the President spoke his answer during not-optimal-gate. Instead, they tried to portray Obama as an uncaring, callous Commander in Chief to whom the lives of the fine people serving this country are nothing more than statistics.

Finally in last night's debate on foreign policy, Obama called Mitt out on his remark about the Navy. He said and I quoth:


"You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916, well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military's changed."


I won't go in to the fact that VP candidate Paul Ryan voted for the bill set to force the DOD budget cuts which Governor Romney attempted to blame President Obama for, instead I will simply focus on the context of the President's statement and how it is being completely ignored.

He was using the tool of analogy to explain that trying to compare uncontextualized numbers of ships in the Navy from a century ago to today is foolish. To spell it out for the slow: our military fields far less horses and bayonets today than compared to the military of 1916, yet we are still the premiere fighting force on this planet. Technology has advanced drastically since 1916 and simple numbers cannot be used alone to tell the story.

We've got more Naval power than the rest of the world combined. We've got more Air power than the rest of the world combined. We have so much technological superiority compared to today's enemies, that we don't need sheer numbers to maintain the status quo. It is intellectually insulting to think we need more ships than we had in 1916 to maintain our role as World Super Power. We've got flying fucking robots that can circumvent the world multiple times whilst dropping a whole fuck-ton of pain anyone we so deem as needing to feel it. Does this not count? Can we not shoot missiles or drop bombs over bodies of water?

Also, many people have decided that even though President Obama said fewer in his statement, what he really meant was none and that he was completely oblivious to our use of horses during the beginning of the Afghan War or that there are still a bayonet or two laying around that he is equally unaware of. This is fucking retarded. Do we not teach people how to comprehend analogies anymore or was my original premise correct in that everyone is a fucking moron, only able to parrot weakly the biased falsities given to them via the media.

It all leaves me frustrated and with only one, simple question that I will leave you with:

Your "Rights"

I ranted for about an hour on this, but as it was almost entirely expletives, and it is something that I've wanted to write about for a while, I decided to delete it all and attempt to put forth my thoughts a little more... reasonably(?).
The extremists on the right are once again raising the ante in the game of "Which side can I hate more?"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/14/arizona-birth-control-bill-contraception-medical-reasons_n_1344557.html

To summarize the above link for those of you too lazy to read it yourselves, it basically says that the Arizona government will concede that yes, birth control has other uses, but if you want your employer to provide you with insurance that covers it, you must prove to your boss that you are using birth control for a medical reason other than responsible family planning.

So the Republicans, who I was under the impression were pro-small government, want to get all up in my bedroom. Their shining rationalization for such absurdity? Why the First Amendment of course.
It happens to say in relation to this topic:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof"

The second part is the particular section they are lifting up as the bastion of their defense. They claim that forcing an employer, who provides insurance for their employees, to provide it in a secular fashion, would be breaking the free exercise clause of the First Amendment.

At this point I will avoid all other aspects of the conversation that do not directly relate to the above argument in regards to the First Amendment as I have touched on the other parts of it in multiple other posts regarding the issue which you can find in the archive section of this blog. (Over that way I do believe ---------->)
I will just walk down their path of rationalization in an attempt to discover how they are coming to the conclusions they are coming to.

They say that they can't have their money go towards something that is against their religion because...

I'm done.

That is as far as I can get before I stumble face first over the hurdle of common sense. My mind is simply unable to overcome it. When I see a logical fallacy so obvious, I lack the ability to trick myself to just glaze over it.

The very first fault in their logic is the thought that our government should give a flying fractal about their religion in the first place. If you have a problem with your religion, pray about it, go cry to your priest, or whatever your church does. Making a law is counter to what our government's job is. As a matter of fact, I believe if you read the first sentence of the First Amendment of which you hold so dear, it states something to that effect.

You wish to argue that this law wouldn't be respecting "a" religion, but all religious beliefs? Well then what happens when two religions are at odds over a particular belief? Which side does the law take? It seems to me that we've hit a paradox. Also who gets to decide what a religion is? Need I have followers to have my beliefs be considered a religion? How many must I have? Would not the government deciding these things once again be counter to the First Amendment?

Secondly, we as a civilized society already restrict the exercise of religion. If your religious belief requires you to break a law (such as animal sacrifice, illegal drug use, polygamy, etc...) it is already prohibited or strictly monitored. I don't hear you crying foul for any of these other religious beliefs.

Lastly, the blatant irony of course is that the government is not in fact hindering you from exercising your religion. All it is doing is what it is supposed to: providing equal opportunity. Nowhere is the government forcing an individual to take birth control against their religious belief. It is just forcing employers to allow their employees to make their own choice on the matter. If they make the choice, well then the employer must pay what the insurance company requires them to pay, the same as they do for any other drug.

Now, many right wing nutjobs will not see these truths as self evident and will in fact argue until the cows come home that we are stomping all over their "right" to force their religious beliefs on others.
There is only one good way to deal with people like that, and you need only to study American history to discover it works quite well.

I call your First Amendment with my First Amendment, and I raise you my Second Amendment.





[Full aside: I hate it when people string bet, but in cases like the above, it's not poker and it clarifies it better so I have granted myself a temporary waiver to do it.]

Re: @Mr. Fischer

There was an article the other day that simply blew my mind. I will quote it in its entirety as the Herald website is garbage. Here is the link to it: http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/231611/

By Ronald Fischer

GRAND FORKS — In reading ultraliberal writer and political activist Nancy Cohen’s column, one would think that the creation of the birth-control pill was the best thing that ever happened in the world (“It all started with the pill,” Page A4, March 7).
Like most extreme liberals, Cohen offered misinformation and outright inaccuracies in her column. I will address the four most blatant.
** First, Cohen suggests that the pill and abortion were needed for gender equality, without explaining why a woman’s ability to have sex without accepting the natural consequences of that act — the possibility of becoming pregnant — in any way elevates the status of a woman.
I submit that woman, created last by God, rather than being inferior to man is the highest and best of all creation. She has the ability to conceive and bring forth new life, consistent with God’s command in the Bible to go forth, be fruitful and multiply.
By marketing the pill and making abortion legal, society actually degraded women and objectified them as sex objects. For people such as Cohen, it is as if engaging in sexual activity without consequence is the be-all and end-all of achieving equality with men. But take a look at the viral proliferation of pornography since the onset of the sexual revolution, and you will see just one of many examples of how rampant the degradation of women has become.
Sex without consequences has the end result of destroying — not building up — society.
** Second, Cohen says those opposing the sexual revolution (including aspects such as gay marriage and abortion) started as a tiny group of women who also were far-right Republicans and Protestant fundamentalists. She conveniently leaves out the Catholic Church, which always has opposed both artificial means of contraception and abortion.
Lest there be any doubt and as just one example, Herald readers should read Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life), which was issued in 1968.
** Third, without citing the source, Cohen states that a recent poll showed 63 percent favored insurance coverage for birth control. While that may be true, it misses the main point that a vast majority of Americans do not believe that the government should have the right to force an employer to provide such coverage against the employer’s First Amendment right to freedom of religion. In other words, that majority also opposes the Obama administration’s most recent attempts to severely restrict religious freedoms.
** Fourth, Cohen states that a solid majority of Americans support abortion rights and gay marriage. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even in California, one of the most liberal states in the country, a majority voted in favor of a constitutional amendment keeping marriage as a union between a man and woman.
While some liberal courts and legislatures have created a “right” that has never existed before, whenever the issue has come up for a popular vote, Americans have soundly rejected it, clearly wishing marriage to stay as it was naturally intended.
And as far as abortion is concerned, the well-respected Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life has conducted many surveys and polls, which show that a vast majority of Americans either outright oppose abortion or favor placing restrictions on abortion, making them more difficult to obtain.
Cohen says those pushing the liberal sexual revolution agenda will not give up. That may be true. But neither will the majority of Americans who oppose the evils wrought by the sexual revolution give up.
We will continue to fight for morality based upon objective truth and natural law. We will continue to expose the ever-growing hazards (including cancer) to women from the pill.
We will continue to fight to uphold marriage as between a man and woman. And we will continue to oppose abortion because it involves the destruction of innocent human life.

As Mr. Fischer attempted to do to Ms. Cohen, I will in turn attempt to do to him.

He starts out immediately by painting Ms. Cohen as an "ultraliberal" and an extremist. I would at this point paint Mr. Fischer as an "ultraconservative" but as a conservative myself, I would be offended by such a remark. Instead I will just post this:

Since reasoning with an extremist of any flavor is an exercise in futility, I will instead just point out Mr. Fischer's own failings of logic to make myself feel better and then wash my hands of his lunacy.

**First, Ronald [can I call you Ronald? Or Ron? Ronnie? I'll stick with Ronald.] draws attention that women who have sex, have the possibility of becoming pregnant and apparently an attempt to remove that possibility is bad. He then submits his argument that... wait, what? The beginning of your argument is "The Bible says..."? Ron, buddy, you have to come out strong here. You are setting the tone for the rest of the article. Sigh... so, your argument is that the Bible says be fruitful and multiply yadda yadda, birth control will end society. Cool. Since my ears are bleeding from my mind trying to figure out how you passed the bar exam, I'm going to go forward pretending that entire section doesn't exist.

**Second, Ronald points out that Ms. Cohen forgot to mention the Catholics. So he points her towards some particular piece of dogma that he feels, I don't know, is magic? I'm not nearly as educated as Mr. Fischer so I'm not sure how what the Pope says does anything other than point out how poor his argument is so far... NEXT!

**Third, (and this one is my favorite) he criticizes Ms. Cohen for not providing a source for her statistics that he says are likely true, and then turns right around does the exact same thing whilst attacking the straw man of religious freedom. Really? REALLY? You are going to throw a flag for not citing her source of the poll she quoted, and then in the very next sentence claim to speak for the "vast majority of America"? Then you claim that we want religious freedom as though that is somehow related with allowing employees access to insurance coverage. Guy, no. No, no, no, NO!
You attempting to force your religious beliefs on others is NOT religious mother fucking freedom! That is called oppression you asshat!
Let me paint a picture for you to make it easier for you to not understand and continue to refute regardless of the undeniable truth presented before you.

I am an Employee. I am Religion X.
I work as a janitor at a School of Religion Y.
I get my health insurance through my work.
My daughter is Religion Z.
Too complicated? I lost you already? OK, I'll literally paint the picture for you then:

As you can clearly see, the first amendment in fact protects people from being oppressed by religion, not by allowing others to oppress because of their religion.

**Fourth, Mr. Cohen claims that the "liberal courts" are creating rights (gay marriage) that have never existed before and implies that since it gets rejected in a popular vote, it should remain as it is. I wonder if Mr. Cohen even read the words over after he typed them? Need I really list every single "right" that we now have that, when they were fought for, never existed? Ugh.
Finally he concludes by calling birth control, gay marriage and abortion "evil" which must be fought. (I am going to ignore the fact that he says birth control is hazardous the same way he ignores that it is helpful.)
Evil.
Neil Patrick Harris marrying his boyfriend is evil.
A rape victim taking the morning after pill is evil.
Every Catholic who I've ever had sex with who used birth control (100% btw) is evil.
Well sip my tea, I had no idea this kind of thing was evil. Silly 'ole me I thought things like rape and murder and child molestation were evil. (Hmm, how many of the those has the Catholic church done in their name...? All? Oops! We'll ignore those facts!) I thought people like Saddam or Bin Laden or Hitler were the evil. Here it turns out I am surrounded by evil!
Oh, and all I have left for this gem: "Morality based on objective truth and natural law" is:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
That's cute. [Full aside, I just looked him up, he's an ambulance chaser, go figure eh?]