Culture Warriors category archive

The Rude One points out the obvious that’s so obvious no one else I’ve seen or heard, including me, has noticed it.

The recent wave of abortion restrictions in states such as Alabama are prima facie establishment of religion (warning: rudeness at the link).

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*Look it up.

One of the essential skills in problem solving is differentiating between symptoms and causes.

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In related news, Will Bunch makes a convincing case that the anti-abortion movement is rooted in America’s original sin.

Image via Job’s Anger.

At Above the Law, Tyler Broker explores Alabama’s disregard for the rights of its citizens against the background its claim to respect a “right to life.” A snippet:

Because in Alabama, the idea that every life is viewed as sacred is refuted by all available evidence.

For example, if you have the stomach for horrific detail, read about the Alabama prison system where rape, murder, and suicide (not to mention exceptionally disproportional rates of incarceration by race) are regular occurrences due to Alabama’s gross unconstitutional negligence towards protecting life. Furthermore, if you are a woman in the Alabama prison system, it is not just the other inmates that you have to worry about sexually assaulting you, it is the prison guards you should fear more. Even if you think that prisoners deserve be treated this way and denied constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment, these are hardly the actions of a state with a “deeply held belief that every life is precious and that every life is a sacred gift from God.”

The Des Moines Register’s Kathie Obradovich explains how “freedom of speech” and “freedom of religion” have become right-wing Newspeak for freedom to discriminate.

Leonard Pitts, Jr., comments on Alabama’s attempt to ban all abortions, including those resulting from rape and incests. A snippet (emphasis added):

And note, please, that the state now barging so brazenly into women’s uteruses is the same one that has banned the sale of sex toys since 1998. For an ideology supposedly predicated upon getting government out of people’s lives, conservatives seem awfully determined to insert themselves into the most intimate crannies of people’s lives.

But then, it seems obvious that their larger target was never so-called “big government,” but rather, modernity itself, progress itself, change itself — the repeal of the 20th century. That was, remember, the century that saw African Americans finally win voting rights, gay people blow up the metaphorical closet and labor unions win higher wages and better conditions for American workers.

In related news, Werner Herzog’s Bear shares some thoughts.

Gina Barreca suggests a motive for the current right-wing movement to impose criminal penalties on women and doctors who are involved in terminating pregnancies, whether the termination is through natural causes or abortion. A snippet:

These cynically sanctimonious, morally smug, and spiritually vain bullies still don’t think of women as actual people. They dismiss women as vehicular: Wombs are inviolable spaces — even if women can be violated — because wombs are the way for a man to make another man. Women’s reproductive organs are like parking spaces for the offspring of men, and therefore need to be organized and designated by authorities.