Political Musings of a Dirty Liberal

Terrorist!

Shall we talk about this?

McCain supporters have been throwing around this accusation for some time now, but it's only just recently coming to the forefront of the political discussions, mostly because of Sarah Palin. "Pallin' around with terrorists!" This has attracted the very worst type of person to Republican rallies, chattering on about how Obama himself is a terrorist, how he's a secret Muslim, et cetera.

Obama is not a terrorist. I don't have evidence to prove this, I'll admit. Much as I don't have evidence to prove that the sky is blue. It's just something that we should take as a given. But I know someone who is.

McCain and Palin (or, if you'd prefer, McCalin) have spent the last few months stirring up these feelings of hatred and fear in their base. "Vote for us! Vote for us, or scary things will happen! Vote for us, or the big mean black man will destroy America!" They couldn't sell themselves on their credentials, such that they are, so they went with something effective: fear.

"Traitor!" "Terrorist!" "Kill him!" It worked. People are afraid of Obama. The problem is...

The problem is, if we take all the nice things that McCain says about Obama at face value, we have a man who is actively spreading lies to frighten people so he can control them. And there's a word for people that do things like that.

Is there a terrorist in this race? There may well be.

I don't really care much for the Libertarian movement. Their entire political philosophy seems to be, "I don't want to pay taxes." I'm aware that there are more subtle nuances, but that seems to be the main point. There are Libertarians who say things like, "I don't think that the government should interfere in the private lives of citizens, and as long as I'm not hurting anyone, I should be able to do what I want." Which is fine. It's better than fine, it's exactly what I think. But that doesn't exactly fit with how they act.

For one thing, their presidential nominee is Bob Barr. For those of you who care, he was one of the authors of the Defense of Marriage Act, one of the many attempts to ban same-sex marriage recognition nationwide. He voted for the Patriot Act. He voted for the Iraq War. He was one of the first people to try to impeach Clinton for his foul crime of getting head. He advocated banning Wiccans from serving in the military (in his defense, maybe he just doesn't want America's bong stores to be left empty). He's reported to have changed his mind since advocating most of these things, and if that's actually the case, more power to him. But he's also one of these assholes that says that we need to rely on the states to decide whether gays should get married or not, and that's just a coward's way of saying that they shouldn't.

Regardless of whether or not he's actually changed his beliefs, the fact is that the Libertarian Party claims to be primarily concerned with freedom and yet still elects a man whose track record shows him to be unquestionably pro-life, anti-gay, against religious equality, and a partisan douchebag. When they decide to elect someone who advocates freedom of religion, gay rights, and women's equality, and then says, "But yeah, you still have to pay taxes," then I'll admit that I may have oversimplified the party.

And I know that I grossly oversimplified this. I'm sure there are individual Libertarians who really do care about gay rights and never say stupid shit like, "Forcing me to wear a seat belt is exactly the same thing as being a Nazi." They just need to drown out the douchebags.

In other news:

Proposed 'Save The Fetuses' Colorado Amendment Idiotic: Observer Sarcastically Notes, 'Big Surprise.' (from Feministing.com)

I don't really identify myself as pro-choice, although I suppose that I fit the definition. It's more that I really don't think that I have any business having an opinion on the matter. I don't have a uterus, so it's a position that I'll never have to be in. If I was with someone who got pregnant, I'd like to be consulted on the matter, but ultimately the real decision would lie with her.

What I find disturbing is this line: "The Human Life Amendment, also known as the personhood amendment, says the words 'person' or 'persons' in the state constitution should 'include any human being from the moment of fertilization.' If voters agreed, legal experts say, it would give fertilized eggs the same legal rights and protections to which people are entitled." (emphasis mine)

The article raises the points that it could put the mother in potential danger by ruling it negligence if she engages in unsafe acts during pregnancy that could potentially lead to a miscarriage, by making her unable to seek out necessary medical procedures that could potentially harm the baby, and by literally making abortion murder. Apparently the people behind this campaign are actually hoping it gets challenged enough to make it all the way to the US Supreme Court, where, if held up, Roe v Wade would finally be successfully overthrown.

Which only goes to show that these people are stupid.

What people seem to fail to realize is that fertilization is when the sperm and the ova meet up and make friends. Conception is a more variable term, but generally it's when the newly formed cell cluster attaches to the uterine walls. Meaning that a couple who are trying to have a baby but continually miscarry could be arrested for reckless endangerment. Meaning that surrogacy would be all but outlawed due to the tremendous risk to the zygotes (this is the reason they fertilize so many eggs before commencing with in vitro fertilization). Hell, you could stretch this even further: a woman with a family history of multiple births could be tried for endangerment because multiple births are more likely to fail. A woman knowingly having sex with a man with a genetic history of identical twins could be tried for the same reason.

I generally think the term "anti-choice" is kind of dumb, but that's what this is: an anti-choice amendment. If you might get pregnant, you'd better watch what you eat, watch how you sleep, don't work too hard, don't exercise too hard, abstain from coffee, keep away from alcohol, and stay away from anyone who might make you sick. If you don't watch yourself, they will.

When Hillary Clinton was running for president, I thought she would have made a good candidate. Really. I thought Obama made a better one, but I only had two real problems with Clinton. For one thing, she had a habit of being reactionary. During the Hot Coffee controversy when Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas was getting big in the news, she was one of the first ones to throw the idea of censorship into the discussion. For the children, of course. Never mind that the game was designed for, and marketed to, people that had to be over seventeen to play it. And that the game had to be hacked for the content to be seen. And that nothing you saw was really inappropriate for someone permitted to see an R-rated movie. I wanted a president who knew the difference between stupid shit and relevant shit.

The second issue is a little more difficult to explain. I didn't want Hillary to be the first female president. Which isn't to say I didn't want her to be president at all, or that I didn't want her any woman to be president. I just thought that she was wrong for the milestone. When she won the senatorship in New York, everyone said it was because of Bill. When she did really well, it was because of Bill. But! When she fucked up, it was because she was a woman. I could see what the future would hold for her: she would be the first woman president and make a bad call or two, and then it would be because she was a woman, and we wouldn't have another woman in the White House for decades. Or, alternatively, she would succeed, but it would always be with a wink and an elbow: "Well, yeah, of course President Clinton did pretty well." And I would have to punch people, and then I'd go to jail, and I wouldn't be allowed to vote anymore.

Anyway, I'd like to retract my opinion about Hillary being the first female whatever. I've seen what a bad female candidate is. Sarah Palin is too ill-informed to be allowed to vote, much less be voted for. I can tolerate a few winks and nudges. I can tolerate the condescending remarks and the idiotic implications. But if McCain is elected and Palin somehow becomes president, female politicians are fucked.

So I say it again: vote Obama, because having a woman in the driver's seat in four or eight years is better than having one drive now, crash the car, and then never having a woman again.

And no, oversensitive idiots everywhere, that was not an implication that women are bad drivers.