Wednesday morning roundup: "are you kidding me?" edition
Some columnist bitch laughing at feminists and their ridiculous "trigger warnings." Because, you know, what the hell kind of wuss needs a warning that they're about to read about graphic details of sex assault? Haha! Look at those dumbass baby rape victims! As Feministe puts it, this how you know you're kind of a jerk. Her follow up post claims that she is not actually so ignorant she doesn't understand triggers and trigger warnings, she is "intimately familiar with trauma, triggers, and post-traumatic stress disorder." But instead of starting a discussion about possible overuse of trigger warnings and why that is problematic (which is what she tries to claim her goal was), she pens a mocking, ignorant post mocking those who use and respond to trigger warnings. Then when people get angry and try to correct her ignorance, she mocks them some more.
Actually, Susie, that means you are a cunt. Sorry.
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Mississipi school district ordered to stop segregating its schools and classrooms. You may remember Mississippi from such recent incidents as the governor talking about how super duper it is to glorify confederates and how slavery is really irrelevent to the issue. Also the incident where a Mississippi school canceled prom because a lesbian wanted to take her girlfriend, then when a court intervened, threw a fake prom for the student while everyone else went to the real prom at another location.
Some people will say it is unfair to judge an entire state based on a few incidents of asshattery. But at some point, the stupid reaches such a saturation point that I feel entirely justified in asking what the fuck is going on in Mississippi? I mean, seriously, you guys. The fuck?
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Speaking of states that need a swift kick in the balls, here's Nebraska. The governor just signed a law banning abortions after 20 weeks on the grounds that after 20 weeks fetuses can feel pain. Uh...huh. He also signed a law to restrict abortion further by requiring physicians to evaluate (among other things) whether a woman has been coerced into an abortion, whether any possible mental or physical risk of abortion ever raised by anyone is a factor, etc. The law then places the judgment call on the physician of whether the benefits of the abortion outweigh the risks. Essentially it makes the doctor the arbiter of consent. So now, it's not up to you to make medical decisions, it's up to your doctor because you're just too stupid to decide if it's better for you to have a medical procedure done or not. Oh, and if the patient later changes her mind, she can sue the doctor, because she doesn't like the decision she made and it's all his fault.
This illustrates two facts that most abortion opponents don't seem to understand. One, banning abortion is about controlling women, not saving lives. (This is illustrated both by the "women are too stupid to make their own decisions" law and the fact that these supposed pro-life heroes killed a bill to provide prenatal care to poor people because, god forbid, some of the mothers-to-be who received care might have been immigrants, and you certainly don't want to save their unborn babies.) Two, people who want to destroy Roe v. Wade are idiots.
Roe v. Wade is not about abortion but the right to privacy. Meaning, its your fucking body and the government doesn't get to direct your medical care. What these anti-choice cretins don't seem to understand or care about in their holy crusade is that if you eviscerate this legal principle so that you can force women to carry pregnancies to term, there is absolutely no bar to the government taking control of other aspects of medical care. Simply put, if the government can force women to give birth, they can also force them to have abortions. Look at the law the government just signed putting the decision of whether or not to do an abortion in the hands of the doctor, taking the ability to consent away from the patient; essentially her knowing consent is meaningless if the doctor decides that the risks of abortion outweigh the benefits. But if that's legal, then why shouldn't the doctor get to make the opposite call.
Picture it. The doctor examines the patient, and in his expert opinion the risks of continuing the pregnancy outweigh the benefits of carrying the baby to term. "You need an abortion," he informs the patient. "No," she says, "I understand the risks, and I want to have this baby." The doctor replies, "Sorry, but I'm the doctor, and it's my opinion that the risk to you outweighs the benefit. It's my decision and you're having this abortion." It's an outrageous scenario, but it's perfectly possible and perfectly legal in a world where the state has determined that a woman has no right to make decisions about her own medical care. Ironically, this is exactly the sort of nonsense that could enable the "death panels" the teabaggers made up to scare people about health reform.
Why is it terrifying to these people that the government might (in their imaginary scenario) dictate who gets a kidney transplant and who doesn't, but it's laudable for the government to dictate who gets an abortion and who doesn't? Think about it.
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Courtesy of Angry Black Bitch, I see that the Catholic Church is urging its members to fight a Connecticut bill that would eliminate the statute of limitations on child abuse lawsuits.
I was going to say 'I have nothing to say to that' but I do.
First thought was, "I bet NAMBLA opposes the law too, but I don't think we should care what they have to say about it either."
Second thought was that if the Catholic Church had reacted like God's representatives on Earth instead of like a a cynical, ass-covering, profit-hungry corporate entity, the predators in their midst would have been publicly defrocked and shamed, scourged from the church's door to the police station, and handed over to the secular law, and the Church would not now be in a situation where it needed to cover its ass by urging the state to deny any vestige of justice to the victims of child abuse.
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Forgot one! Arizona has passed a new law that requires police and other state employees to verify the immigration status of people they come in contact with. Police now have the power to stop anyone they "reasonably suspect" of being in the country illegally and demand proof of citizenship. If the person cannot immediately produce documentation, the police can arrest him or her and charge them with a crime.
I love that conservatives who claim to desperately fear Obama's administration turning the US into a totalitarian wonderland are delighted to get the jump on the feds by instituting the police state themselves. Naturally, the white supremecists who support the law have little fear that they will be stopped and forced to prove their citizenship, as the unspoken assumption behind the law is that "illegals" means "latinos" and therefore as long as you appear sufficiently caucasian, you are unlikely to be harrassed by the police. Hispanic people, on the other hand, will now be subject to indiscriminate harrassment by racist cops just looking for an excuse.
Also, in a move that no doubt has tiny-dicked assholes jacking it like there's no tomorrow, the law creates a right for any citizen of the state to sue any government official if they feel that person isn't doing enough to enforce immigration law.
Let's all remember this, shall we, the next time some conservative trogolodyte tries to bitch about "frivolous lawsuits" or how Obama is like Hitler or wants to put us in prison camps.