The stastistics on the right explain how we got where we are. CSPAN & the other NOOZ won't.

Good points to bring up during the election season this year. And to drive home in local races, as well. I'll add this I found, because it can't be said too often about our opposition:

The single largest defect of modern conservatism is that it has ruined the nation. Conservatives do not have ideas; they have interests.

Conservatives are not “thinkers”; they are rationalizers who give an intellectual gloss to their belief that an alliance of predatory businesspeople and religious extremists should rule the rest of us.

The wreckage caused by modern conservatism lies all around us, and speaks for itself: If conservatism isn’t dead, it should be.

- DANIEL ROSEN - Washington Post 10/9/2009

2012 State Of The Union Address: Enhanced Version

Thanks, but if you check my edited post above, there's no cause for celebration. Roe v. Wade...

Is not what we really want in this country. It is a failed solution in a country that is not living up to its obligations to treat all citizens equally. It is piecemeal and a last resort. When we could end abortion by other means.

It's been maintained as a bastion against many other things liberals have not been able to make the case for in a country dominated by rightwing media. Anymore than we've been able to make the case for clean water, air, other civil rights and protections of human beings and animals and species.

It's not that the ideas are not good; it's been through a process of Cold War fears, along with deregulation that have taken away the dignity of all Americans through right wing think tanks and funding churches to rationalize support of the rich and powerful, and then to focus on the poor as morally reprehensible.

When the issue is so much bigger than drugs, abortion, or anything else. So many have spoken on these things, that we are embattled on:

The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor. - Voltaire

Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed. - Herman Melville

The entire issue would not exist if we pushed for more equality and respect for the humanity of the woman and child without considering the pregnancy itself, and not the right to abort one.

The reason why so many people on our side of the aisle are silent on this issue is that they know abortion is a poor solution to a far greater problem that we have not even been allowed to discuss.

Or they are hypocrites, but we are talking among ourselves and are for the most part a group of liberal, progressive, egalitarian Democrats here at DU.

And I am explaining that in my own words except for the quotations and mean no offense to you or any other DUer.

Paul lives in a state that mandates women to have transvaginal ultrasound devices inserted inside...

Their bodies and has said nothing about the police state tactic of having a LEO stand by to make sure it is performed. Not necessarily by a doctor, either, and to victims of rape and incest as well.

And as a member on DU2 explained, it is very painful and causes bleeding as she'd had it done to inspect her for cancer. And will be done for no purpose other than intimidation, humiliation and punishing women who dare to show up and ask for a legal abortion.

In other words, girls, just suck it up, it happened, now lie down and take it like a good little girl and have that baby. Santorum just said the same thing.

By the way, these women will be billed for being raped with a plastic gun described as having the dimensions of a stormtrooper's gun in the movie Star Wars.

So liberty and freedom don't apply to women.

Paulbots are Alex Jones fans and he eggs them on to support these laws on a state by state level... How do I dare to claim that?

Because I listened to his program right after Perry signed that law into effect to see if he was going to be consistent regarding police state tactics, but he wasn't, instead he congratulated a guy who called in from Oklahoma with news of a personhood law.

He's railed about all these intrusions into our lives:

People being pulled over and having to submit to blood tests by policemen,being tasered, filmed in public bathrooms, mandatory vaccinations of women coming from Latin America, causing them to become sterile, and TSA inspections of men's 'junk' and women's bodies

He's made a slew of movies, not the least of which is The Obama Deception. Watch it and shiver. His other flicks indicate he's scared of government subjecting us to totalitarian rule in every aspect of our physical lives in the USA:

http://www.infowars.com/features/alex_jones_movies/

I was wondering if big old Mr. Don't Tread On Me thought that applied to women too...

But Sorry, Charlene, rights are for straight, white, Christian fundamentalist males. And Paul's new guy in his campaign, also mentioned in a post here on DU, was moved from one spot in the future Paul cabinet to another after putting his foot in his mouth and callling for gays to be done away with.

The he said that they'd keep quiet on the church and state issue but would create a theocracy gradually... So that all those nasty civil rights issues would never come up again.

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/12/ron-paul-hired-anti-gay-activist-to-run-iowa-campaign.php

But still, as disgusted as we are about the way the world is going, and unhappily coming to grips with who we really are as a country...

We have to remember what a Ron Paul reign would look like. He's a Republican. His version of rights and liberty and freedom were discussed by Monbiot in an excellent article also posted here at DU, 'How Freedom Became Tryanny.'

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/

His libertarian stance leds to feudalism and anyone with any memory for history knows that women, children and animals were in the same class. The first animal welfare agencies regarded women and children among those they needed to protect. This is where privatization and corporatism leads.

Those with the wealth will rule us like robber barons, the little bit of the commons we now have to protect our rights and our bodies against the powerful, will disappear.

The abortion issue is one of the greatest shams ever put upon the American people.

It's never been about saving lives, but they get people all Bambi eyed about the unborn, but have no respect for their mothers, nor their offspring when they are safely out of the womb. The true issue that the very public debate of abortion covers, is that it is an economic issue.

Before Roe V. Wade, rich women traveled out of the country or had private doctors they could pay cash and get their abortions. Made illegal again, they will travel and do as they please again. You will never read of a wealthy woman being forced to come to term if she doesn't want to, not by law.

No, this is for the lower classes. And it's also kept public, by means of denying contraception and the morning after pill to keep it public and available to the mob mentality. No one pickets the houses of the wealthy who may be having abortions or living off of corpoate welfare, because it's truly private.

Women whose contraceptive method failed, used abstinence, thus were unprotected by contraception because they didn't want to have sex when raped or had incest committed on their bodies, can't live up the standards that these control freaks impose with their judgmental mentality. Even the Virgin Mary didn't have a way to stop from becoming pregnant, much less other women. If all women were revered the same way, would they need abortion rights?

Women are being forced to endure the pain of a surgical abortion, which is an invasion of the body, and the cruelty on themselves and the child itself, when it doesn't have to be that way.

For centuries or millenia, abortions were carried out without gruesome means. Women took herbs that made themselves miscarry. Every month a women has a period, a baby that could have been brought to term loses a chance as that egg gets flushed away. The egg may or may not be fertilized, but there it goes unless things worked for the egg to grow into a fetus and then a baby.

Let's not kid ourselves about this issue.

There is no woman who wants to use abortion as birth control. To be pro-choice is to not to love the procedure of abortion or hate unborn babies. It is the culmination of a series of dehumanizing choices being forced on half the population. And the myth of the right of fathers to have a say over a life changing event is another control method.

Because the man can impregnate a woman and escape the consequences if he is dishonorable and really determined to do so by any means, and do without having to jump through the hurdles women are being forced to navigate, but she cannot do so.

This is about killing a potential human being and will never be a cause for celebration.

For various reasons, good or bad. In a more egalitarian society, the morning after pill would eliminate the surgery, causing what might have happened naturally, the egg passing out without hardly any development or the precious little feet that 'pro-life' groups carry on about.

Carrying on about people they don't give tinker's damn about, in many cases, wish that they and their mothers, poor, minority, immigrant, whatever would simply die themselves and not clutter their pristine world view. Out of sight, out of mind.

All of that to feed their egos and perverted sense of self-righteousness. They can trot out cases of babies that were adopted, but those who want women to have a say, can bring out thousands for every one of those, stigmatized for being born to a woman with lesser means and social status. The class that the majority of these prolife liars would rather see dead.

No, the bigger issue is that we don't have a social safety net, which in true GOD mode, would see all beings as deserving of food, clothing, housing and all the things we strive to have. We don't have that, it would be embarrassing to pay to give that to the same kind of people many don't want to share their neighborhood with.

So let's boo hoo about the poor little babies. Then name call the women who don't want a gun stuck into their insides to hurt them and make them bleed for the sin of being pregnant and not being loved enough by the world at large.

Don't let her dare to feel she and her child should be given medical care, respect and help through her pregnancy and her and her child's life, to make her and her child's life a blessing and not a curse.

We must never bring into discussion the real issue, money, and power, and classes of people, the haves and have nots. Let's not commit to treating every human being as these zealots forget their God as saying that all are equal. That all have come short of the glory of God and are equal. What a humiliating thought, that we might all equal, really, in the end.

What an absolute horror that would be, that every child in this world, and every soul that breathes air, would be treated with love and respect and dignity. Hell no, that would be what a socialist would do. Or perhaps Jesus would do, healing and feeding people for free because they are all God's children.

Oh no, let's just ignore his advice and name call the women who are pregnant, abuse them and make them carry the burden of this society's sin. I am not going to be affected by Roe V Wade going down and it effectively has been destroyed now.

Federal law is not protecting women at all in the face of the glorious principle of state's rights. Nor will state's rights protect the unpopular and the poor in their borders as after all, they didn't do that for most of this nation's history.

I'm not religious but was, and I can tell you without fear of rebuke by a higher power, these hypocrites are going to hell of some kind, because they are slaughtering much more than they can ever accuse these women or their doctors of doing.

Okay, and I'm glad you're here, good posts you're making here. And I wouldn't have a star if a couple of nice people hadn't donated for it for me, and this is an interesting place. But we sometimes get little return for the time we put in. I've enjoyed the threads you've created. I appreciate them and they make my time here much more interesting.

Science fiction flicks trying to tell us something?

Future War: Autonomous Drones and War Robots (Hunter Killers and Terminators)

You spoke the truth gently and made the case perfectly. I'm in awe of what you wrote and saving it.

Although I'd warn the white woman 'who got the vapors' that the truth shouldn't hurt, it should be liberating to everyone.

I think she's too afraid to speak up, so she's lost her 'liberty' already. If any of them want to make the case for 'liberty,' they need to understand they are in a group that actually espouse these values:

'How Freedom Became Tyranny'

Rightwing libertarians have turned “freedom” into an excuse for greed and exploitation.

http://www.monbiot.com/2011/12/19/how-freedom-became-tyranny/

It's an eye opener and those women should resist Ron Paul and his 'campaign for liberty' while they can still vote. Some of the Paul crowd want every amendment to the Constitution repealed except the first ten and don't mind saying they'll rescind the right of women to vote, too.

This is so complicated IDK what he did. But this and another thread makes him seem like O'Keefe.

I was unaware of unethical things he has done until I read some of the articles posted here recently. I'd only read his writings on Salon about the GOP. He has a certain insight and extremely active.

It is his actions on the individuals used in his causes I find troubling. He has a disconnect between the harm he is causing and his zeal for his causes. He appears to use and discard people as if they are pawns in a game.