Sunday 8 April 2012

Eternal Vigilance and All That Jazz

Another male ally who gets it: Rev. Paperboy.

The good Rev. gives his own take on abortion and then gets into the recent unpleasantness between DJ! and the aggregator called 'Progressive Bloggers', starting with blogger Gordie the Wank.

It's solid. And even better -- it has a lovely description of Me that made sweetie cackle like a crazy person. (bold in original)
He [Gordie], and many others, were shocked and offended by the angry tone taken by Fern Hill. I think they were surprised at the vehemence with which she made her case and the abrasive tone she took, when they felt they fundamentally agree with her position. Having interacted with Fern Hill many times in the past, I will stipulate that she is definitely both vehement and abrasive and can seem to be very thin-skinned with a hair-trigger. (These are things I like about her, but more about that shortly)

I'm sure more than a few people felt Fern Hill and her supporters were overreacting and going after what looked like minuscule molehill-sized differences in approach between allies with a gigantic mountain-cracker thermonuclear shithammer. I mean, after all, abortion is legal. We all agree it should be legal. This is a settled matter, right?

And that is exactly the point. Why open a settled matter - one that was settled one agonizing step out of the Dark Ages at a time? Who does it possibly serve to discuss whether water is wet or the sky is blue or women have the right to make a choice? In the words of Billy Crystal: Why don't you just give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? Yes, by all means let us discuss whether women can make choices, let us go tap dancing through that mine field!

No, Fern Hill's response - instantaneous angry indignation - to having supposed allies mention that they are open to discussing giving up her rights is pretty much pitch perfect and to be respected.

To lift the vocabulary of the other side, eternal vigilance is the price of freedom and extremism in the defence of liberty is no sin and all that jazz,  because there is a slippery slope, this is the thin end of the wedge. By agreeing to any related discussion, we cede the notion that a woman right to choice is a settled matter.

I'd like to say thanks again to all the good people who came to our support. The price of eternal vigilance is frequently the feeling that one is in a really really small club.

It's grand not only to find the club is much bigger than one thought, but one's fellow and sister members are so AWESOME.

12 comments:

Rev.Paperboy said...

aw shucks...

MB Curmudgeon said...

Life can be served up in black and white terms, but frankly I enjoy all the colours of the rainbow.

Does a sex trade worker (damn I hate PC BS) have a right or entitlement to taxpayer funded abortion services in the same way as other women?

Is it right that a doctor get rich providing a much needed medical service to women?

Does it trivialize human reproduction into the same category as a spaying/neuter clinic for pets?

Just curious...

Anonymous said...

I had always thought it was impossible to give someone a handjob while patting yourself on the back.

Niles said...

RevP, what's the general attitude in Japan to women's health issues and abortion?

fern hill said...

Hm. Someone who has issues with PB.

Anyone want to answer his (surely) questions?

Anyone?

deBeauxOs said...

And I'm curious too, MB Curmodgeon, about the overtly misogynistic and hostile bias of your questions.

Care to clarify what exactly you need to know?

Niles said...

MBC,

1. yes. The same way johns are rightfully entitled to getting health services.

2. yes. doctors don't go into medical careers to be poverty stricken and the provinces in our universal healthcare system dictate what is being charged for legal medical services.

3. uhm. spaying/neutering would be the equivalent of vasectomy/tubes tied, so what's your point again? you want people trivially permanently sterile? Both animals and humans, especially males, can actually have an unsuccessful snip. Guess what has to happen then if you don't want pregnancies to come to term

Oddly, when the poor quality stud gets in among the mares in heat, or a recently proud-cut gelding proves he's more than playing around, vets are perfectly capable of inducing abortions for the owners and nobody yells..so...trivialize sex..hmm...hmm.

Yes.

You're not being curious, you're employing Socratic rhetoric in an insincere manner. Were you attracted here by the Kinsella piece or other bitching?

Anonymous said...

Careful people, CanadianCynic has this place on his radar. Better hide your kids or he's likely to start posting about them and their (his words) "supple" skins...

deBeauxOs said...

Say, "Anonymous" at 4:20 am, are you the world-famous rightwing stalker and harasser of women, Dickie Evans?

Trolling the intertoobz again, late at night?

MB Curmudgeon said...

Socratic rhetoric in an insincere manner? Nope just chumming to see what was in unknown waters.

Feel free to beat the drum about rights, but IMHO when it comes down to balancing the exercise of rights against any measure of social responsibility it seems there is no offset or balance.

Sorry but IMHO being a sex trade worker is a business, and I see no reason why my taxes should be used pay for any business related expenses, including abortions.

Doctors are certainly entitled to just and fair compensation. Exploiting the issue of abortion for personal financial enrichment is just plain wrong. Just as wrong as it is when a politician exploits the abortion issue for their own personal political advantage.

No one has to like or agree with the position that abortion is a moral/religious affront to the dignity of human life, or that it isn't so for that matter. However, an angry fuck you I don't care what you think, or you're just an asshole in diguise waiting to attack, isn't overly productive.

deBeauxOs had no problem vilifying my comments out of hand. At least Niles had the courtesy to explain where he/she was coming from and allow everyone who reads it to make their own judgements on it's worth. I don't have to agree with his/her position to respect that form of expresion.

As to why I showed up here, it's no real mystery. I've frequently encountered and/or engaged with the Rev and Fern under my latest Twitter incarnation as @H0pp for quite some time.

Niles said...

MBC, your humble opinion sounds more like blind privilege in full elephantine Must, trumpeting and trammeling.

Your first assertion/conclusion has a painfully twisted strawdick argument in it. ie: presuming sex workers require abortions as 'business related expenses'.

So, a sex worker who gets raped and becomes pregnant because of that, must bear the fetus to full term because...? A sex worker who decides to become pregnant and then finds her life at risk as a result must carry it to term because...? Etc.

Your fallacy, and it is a most repulsively egregious fallacy, is the implication that, given any choice in the matter, women sex workers or prostitutes or whores or professional coital transactionalists by any other name, do not use contraception other than post gravidity abortion while engaging in 'business' sex. So...you believe they sign in for a tune-up D&C at the corner abortion shop, what, every 100 vaginal fucks?

Beyond that, you seriously assert professional coital transactionalists of any gender are legally able to claim business expenses and form company medical plans? Seriously??

What about the womb owners 'giving it away for free'? How many Coital Donations are they allowed per annum before your precious taxes are wasted in letting them near the healthcare for which their own taxes apparently are not engaged?

Your second strawdick argument and fallacy lies in the assertion that doctors (the general use of a term that requires a whooole other load of unpacking) 'exploit' abortion, rubbing their hands together in maniacal glee while exerting Mesmeric powers over teh helpless, gravid female humans they have convinced to become pregnant so the doctors can become rich unpregnifying them. Where do you get this fantasy boxing opponent? It isn't reality.

Ms DeBee has no problem villifying your 'arguments' because you don't have arguments, you have false, arrogant nonsense zombie moaning interspersed by inhalation because your brain was apparently aborted long ago by your spinal cord leaping up and strangling it, and you're in search of a new one. She's been there, double-tapped your unceasing kind.

Don't respect me like it's a pat on the head for good behaviour. I am not virtuous, I am wordy. You want to lay out some real respect, consider the right of womb owners as unnegotiable as you not being forced to undergo hormone treatments to enable you to suckle infants you've sired.

MB Curmudgeon said...

Well I guess you told me Niles! You go girl! Whip me, beat me, make me write bad blogs - I am your servant.

Seriously - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksJ2pPK-Us

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