Two peas in a pod: Abortion restrictionists and gun control advocates

[friendly_iconoclast]

As some of you may know, I am a former 'member' of the Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence, and I still get mailings from them.
The latest one is purportedly from Colin Goddard, Virginia Tech survivor and paid propagandist for the Bradys.

In this one, he wants to stop bill in several states under the notion that this will somehow prevent "another tragedy like Virginia Tech"
(aside from the fact that guns in college classrooms were illegal where he got shot, he neglects to mention how this is supposed to work)
I quote: "I care. And I'm mad as hell our political leaders are willing to let more people die rather than take on the NRA."

"...elected officials think twice about doing the NRA's bidding while innocent lives hang in the balance."

"I'm proud that my dad will be out there fighting with me too-he's become an outspoken advocate for sensible gun laws..."

That's sweet- They care about others' lives, and propose 'common sense' laws. Just like Jan Brewer, governor of Arizona:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/101497482

Jan Brewer signs abortion ban defining pregnancy before conception
Source: Raw Story

Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer on Thursday signed one of the most controversial and restrictive abortion bans in the country, which experts say effectively bans abortions after 18 weeks and declares that a woman could be pregnant 2 weeks before she even had sex.

“This legislation is consistent with my strong track record of supporting common sense measures to protect the health of women and safeguard our most vulnerable population – the unborn,” a statement from the governor’s office said.

“Knowing that abortions become riskier the later they are performed in pregnancy, it only makes sense to prohibit these procedures past 20 weeks,” Brewer insisted.

Arizona’s HB 2036 takes Nebraska’s 20-week abortion ban one step further by starting the clock on pregnancies at the woman’s last last menstrual period, which could be two weeks before fertilization...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/04/13/jan-brewer-signs-abortion-ban-defining-pregnancy-before-conception/


But that's not the only way the two groups are alike-

http://www.sho.com/site/movies/movie.do?seriesid=0&seasonid=0&episodeid=139425

http://www.livingfor32.com/

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x474909

Colin Goddard: they guy who did to gun shows what James O'Keefe did to ACORN.

But it was for a good cause, so it justified the means. And only a lout would wonder why the unedited videos have yet to surface...
<sarcasm mode to OFF>

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/23/planned-parenthood-live-action_n_1446527.html

Planned Parenthood Worried It's The Target Of New Undercover Sting


While patient privacy laws prohibit Planned Parenthood from offering specific details about the visits and where they occurred, Cooney told The Huffington Post that the incidents are so unusual and so similar to each other that they have raised concerns among the organization's executives that the visits are being recorded as part of a concerted anti-Planned Parenthood campaign.

"For years opponents of reproductive health and Planned Parenthood have engaged in secret videotaping tactics with fictitious patient scenarios and selective editing in an attempt to promote misinformation about Planned Parenthood and our services," Cooney said. "As with the prior instances, we anticipate that once again this group, likely in coordination with a broad range of anti-abortion leaders, will soon launch a propaganda campaign with the goal of discrediting Planned Parenthood, and, ultimately, restricting women's health."

The most likely group behind the campaign, Planned Parenthood suspects, is anti-abortion activist group Live Action, which has a history of paying actors to walk into Planned Parenthood clinics and act out various controversial scenarios in an attempt to catch the family planning provider's staffers doing something illegal or immoral on tape. A recent operation involved actors posing as pimps and prostitutes engaged in human trafficking and seeking birth control, STD testing and other family planning services. HuffPost's Ryan Grim reported in February 2011 that Live Action heavily edited the videos they gathered to alter the meaning of conversations and falsely imply that Planned Parenthood is complicit in sex trafficking, but conservative lawmakers and media outlets cited the group's videos in numerous subsequent political attacks against the family planning provider...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/24/planned-parenthood-funding_n_827886.html

Great minds think alike...

[ileus]

1. If they really cared they'd have a progressive attitude toward the most basic civil right.

but they don't....they want to feel good...

[DanTex]

2. Funny how most gun nuts are also pro-lifers...

Like most things pro-gunners say, this "peas in a pod" theory doesn't square with reality.

Of course, I don't think this is a necessarily direct link. It's more a case of "correlation is not causation": both "gun rights" extremists and anti-abortionists tend to be right-wing buffoons, while progressives tend to support both gun control and abortion rights.

[gejohnston]

3. you missed the point

I believe the point was closer to inconsistency and ideology going together like peas and carrots.

[DanTex]

5. I'm not sure there was a point.

The OP is a bunch of links with scattered text surrounding them, but nothing resembling a coherent argument. For example, the OP brought up Jan Brewer, who is not only anti-abortion, but also has signed several pro-gun laws including allowing people to CC without a permit.

Thus illustrating my point: gun nuts and anti-abortionists are not just two peas in a pod, but in most cases, the very same pea.

[friendly_iconoclast]

6. You omitted the use of cooked videos by both sets of restrictionists.

In that regard, Colin Goddard differs not a whit from Live Action or James O'Keefe. Both groups also proclaim an overriding concern for the safety of others, as well.
They've got that "Higher Truth" thing going on, dontcha know?

I have nothing but contempt for Brewer, as she differs from the anti-gun types only in her choice of which rights she chooses to trample on.
It's a pity you can't see that...

[rl6214]

7. Funny most anti-gun zealots are just...

buffoons.

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. That's my take on the fetus fetishists, as well...

[rl6214]

12. No arguements with you there

[jpak]

4. Peas in a pod - NRA and gun nuts

yup

[iverglas]

8. one of the ugliest gun mlitant memes there is

and it just keeps rearing its ugly head here at Democratic Underground.

Who actually tries at every opportunity to violate women's rights, subject women trying to exercise their choice to psychological and physical abuse, endanger women's lives with their war on women legislation and policies?

The same politicians as are getting their funding from the NRA, that's who.

The same politicians as are getting their votes from serious gun militants and general all-round right-wing morons, that's who.

I hope you spent a whole lot of time assembling this garbage. At least you weren't doing anything genuinely harmful while you were busy doing that.

[friendly_iconoclast]

11. If the gun restrictionists quit aping the fetus fetishists, the meme will go away.

Lets see, we have both groups employing:

Po-faced claims to be acting in others' best interests.
Mawkish appeals to emotion.
Bald-faced lies.
Disinformation campaigns including doctored video.
The willingness to act as if 'those people's" rights aren't really rights at all.

I've no doubt that a substantial proportion, if not a majority of NRA members hate Roe v. Wade and Griswold v. Connecticut with the burning fury
of a thousand suns- but then again, it's not their rights they see being trampled.

It's different when the jackboot is on the other foot, innit?

[DanTex]

13. The tradition of right-wingers defending odious policies under the "rights" banner is a long one.

A classic example is William F Buckley's impassioned defense of white supremacy in the face of the civil rights movement, where he insisted that the White South had the "right to impose superior mores for whatever period it takes to effect a genuine cultural equality between the races". Ick.

More recently, the push to strip away the social safety net and impose an Ayn Randian dystopia has also been dressed up as a "rights" issue. So it's not much of a surprise that these same right-wing crazies, who insist on unfettered indulgence of their gun fetishes even at the cost of tens of thousands of lives every year, do so under the "rights" banner as well.

One effect of the "rights" argument is that it avoids the cost-benefit analysis -- the lax gun laws in the US are completely indefensible on utilitarian grounds -- by elevating "gun rights" to a higher moral imperative.

As you point out, tossing around the word "rights" like this trivializes the whole concept. The right of a woman to control her own body is a fundamental right. Along with the right to free speech and expression, the right to fair judicial procedures and the right not to be tortured, etc. But the "right" to discriminate based on race, or the "right" to trot around with a loaded gun are not.

[iverglas]

14. yup, I make this point at every opportunity

"Free speech" itself is the other biggie, and it's deployed to great effect here in Canada as well. In fact, gun militants in the US try that avenue: wandering around campuses wearing empty holsters as a protest against not being allowed to have actual guns on campus is "free speech".

(A few years ago here, a doctor, i.e. not a person without significant personal resources, went to the Supreme Court claiming that the universal health plan violated his right to life and security of the person ... and won, in one of the worst decisions I've ever seen. A narrow victory in that case, but a foot in the door of diminishing the ability of most people in Canada to exercise their rights to life and security of the person.)

Rights become a weapon with which to bludgeon any disadvantaged group that makes the least effort to achieve equality and any attempt to improve society for the benefit of the vast majority of people, and combat any gains made toward equal opportunity.

The aim of many aspects of their battle plan is intimidation, and their efforts rely heavily on provocation. People wearing firearms to children's soccer games and people displaying giant billboards of aborted fetuses on university campuses (or publishing bigoted cartoons, e.g.) are provocateurs, no more and no less. When decent people -- and in particular the direct targets of their actions -- take exception to their despicable behaviours, it's all "my rights! my rights!"

No one in the world has the least difficulty seeing exactly what the right wing is up to when it does these things.


typos

[gejohnston]

15. speech you don't like is intimidation?

wandering around campuses wearing empty holsters as a protest against not being allowed to have actual guns on campus is "free speech".

How is that not free speech? It really sounds like you would ban speech you don't like.

[iverglas]

16. "It really sounds like you would ban speech you don't like."

It really sounds like you will say any nasty false thing that comes into your head if it serves your agenda.

I don't like the colour orange.

Now, you step up and tell the world that it sounds like I would ban any colour I don't like.

Really, it's just rotten, what you're doing.

[gejohnston]

17. that is what I honestly got out of that

shrill rant. Any speech you don't like is intimidation. Why would intimidation be protected free speech?

[iverglas]

18. I am sorry for you

You must suffer great difficulty in your communication in real life.

Any speech you don't like is intimidation.

I gave examples of speech that are plainly designed to intimidate.

From this you conclude that if I hear someone say they are going to paint their front door orange, I will accuse them of intimidation.

And then I would try to ban orange doors.

It truly is sad that anyone might be as unable to participate in everyday conversation as someone who draws such conclusions must be.

Why would intimidation be protected free speech?

I don't even know what that could mean. Is intimidation a crime? If somebody knocks your drink over in a bar and you say "Apologize!" and the person says "You wanna fight?" and you stand up and show your full 6'6 250-pound self and the person skulks away, do you go to jail?

If you tell the local store that you aren't going to shop there if they won't let you wear your gun in the aisles, and they take down their no-guns sign, do you get arrested?

Headscratch.

shrill rant

Good one. In a thread that takes women's rights as one of its topics, you call the only actual woman in the discussion, in response to a post that contained nothing that even bore a passing resemblance to shrill or a rant, shrill and ranting.

Good choice.

[gejohnston]

19. calling speech you don't like

aimed to "intimidate" (with out evidence of intent) rather than persuade or express an opinion is shrill. Your sidekick above was equally shrill.

[iverglas]

20. IF I HAD CALLED SPEECH I DIDN'T LIKE "INTIMIDATION"

BECAUSE I DIDN'T LIKE IT, YOU WOULD HAVE A REASON TO SAY WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

I DID NOT call "speech (I) don't like" intimidation.

I don't like the speech that I identified as intimidating, but I did not call it intimidating BECAUSE I don't like it.

This would be obvious to a budgie.

I often try to give you the benefit of the doubt with your bizarre interpretations, but it's a losing proposition.

[gejohnston]

23. gross billboards

might make people barf, but they don't intimidate.

[DanTex]

21. Oh I get it!

When someone says something you disagree with, instead of saying "I disagree", you say "you're being shrill".

Because obviously, any opinion other than yours emits a high-pitched piercing sound...

[gejohnston]

22. no, reasoned discourse

that I disagree with is "I respect your opinion, but I respectfully disagree." Going off on less than coherent tangents about the Klan, Ayn Rand fans are shrill rants. Kind of like "they have empty holsters to intimidate." Aborted fetus billboards are gross, but they don't intimidate.

[Clames]

9. They certainly do.

Anti-gun, anti-gay, anti-abortion...members of such groups have their brains stuffed so full with the word "ban" that they have room for little else...

[Doctor_J]

24. Jan Brewer is a gun control advocate???

Wow, the gun culture's leaps of logic get nuttier every day. A simple observation would make you aware of the fact that there is a 95% overlap among the SYG/no gun restrictions at all crowd with the compulsory pregnancy kooks. Stop lying.

[gejohnston]

25. you missed the point

and SYG has nothing to do with gun restrictions. He or she was simply pointing out that both factions use the same propaganda techniques. How you got "Jan Brewer gun control advocate" out of that escapes me.

[friendly_iconoclast]

26. 'True believers' of all sorts are more alike than different-not that they'll ever admit it...

It's hardly a new or original observation- it is the underlying thesis of Eric Hoffer's The True Believer: Thoughts On The Nature Of Mass Movements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_True_Believer

...The book analyzes and attempts to explain the motives of the various types of personalities that give rise to mass movements; why and how mass movements start, progress and end; and the similarities between them, whether religious, political, radical or reactionary. As examples, the book often refers to Communism, Fascism, National Socialism, Christianity, Protestantism, and Islam. Hoffer believes that mass movements are interchangeable, that adherents will often flip from one movement to another, and that the motivations for mass movements are interchangeable; that religious, nationalist and social movements, whether radical or reactionary, tend to attract the same type of followers, behave in the same way and use the same tactics, even when their stated goals or values differed.

[singingtothewheat]

27. well of course

They don't want us to have guns. It makes us more vulnerable aka,,, it gives them more power to rule things in the manner suiting them.

[singingtothewheat]

28. in 2010 the nra back several Democrats

There are a lot of Democratic gun owners too. Myself included.