A Conservative's Survival Guide for the Next Four Years

[jimkeller]

Yesterday's defeat of Mitt Romney has left quite a few of my very dear friends devastated1. Despite the fact that it appears that the Republicans held on to control of the House of Representatives, the conservative agenda seems to be dead in the water for at least the next two years, if not the next four

Comments

[astro_babe]

With regard to abortion and the education issue. . . many folks think Obamacare as implemented fixes all the problems because us ladies can get birth control for free. Unfortunately many of us still face issues related to poorly educated medical personnel who deny long term measures to the younger population based on very very old accidents, especially when it comes to getting IUDs which are goddamn removable.

Another thing to note however is that Obamacare only forces those requirements on insurance, and not Medicaid. The feds actually have requirements on record regarding options such as sterilization with limits based on age (you cannot get one until over 21) and have procedure checklists that make things a giant pain in the ass like mandatory waiting periods in excess of weeks. So the government run programs need some help too getting rid of the stupid!

[jimkeller]

I wasn't aware of those specifics, but color me unsurprised that Obamacare is plagued with typical government issues... :)

[astro_babe]

Yes, unless you're female and have been asked the question of "do you have real insurance, or are you on state care?", you wouldn't be as aware that the flaming hoops are different.

But the poor education of medical professionals thing was really interesting when I tried to get my tubes tied. . .docs thought 30 was the magic age and that I couldn't have an IUD unless I had a kid (very untrue). I was very lucky I finally got referred to an abortion provider whose attitude was "I see enough folks coming in for abortions that don't want kids at all and I'd rather do this for you than see you here for an abortion if I can".

[jimkeller]

It's astounding the lack of continuing education doctors get. I can't tell you how many kids I know who've been circumcised not for religious reason but because the doctors told the mothers it was medically necessary. That line of medical reasoning was thoroughly debunked in the 1980s.

[jonahmama]

Sorry, but the real problem is, the Republican Party is now Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman's party. And they have zero interest in any of your wonderful plans

[jimkeller]

Sorry, but the real problem is, the Republican Party is now Rick Santorum and Michelle Bachman's party. And they have zero interest in any of your wonderful plans.

Please note that this is not titled "A Republican's Survival Guide for the Next Four Years." I tend to agree that the Republican Party is probably a lost cause. I hope not, of course, but since they didn't get the memo in 2008, I'm not hopeful. Nowadays most true conservatives are identifying non-partisan.

Re: zoning -- what are you talking about? What are these zoning restrictions and what's the rationale behind them?

Said with the caveat that rationale of zoning laws is not my field of expertise and I'm therefore relying heavily on hearsay to answer that question, I think the reason for the laws is some notion that the practice of medicine is like heavy industry in that it's hazardous to the health of anyone who lives or works too close by. A lot of older cities have hospitals that are grandfathered in, of course, but opening new facilities is, from what I've been

[jimkeller]

I'm not aware of any state where it's legal to operate across state lines but the companies choose not to for those reasons, since every state I've ever lived in flat-out prohibits out-of-state companies from doing business there unless they agree to maintain a business presence in-state and abide by the state laws. But it would be a related issue if so, because that would be the state demanding compliance with its laws even for out-of-state contracts, which would be a serious damper on free-market principles.

As much as I dislike centralized government, in many ways it would make sense to create an interstate insurance commission, so states would feel they have a recourse against out-of-state companies that do all the nefarious things we fear they're going to.

[kclightman]

FYI anyone who really wants to render abortion unnecessary, has to be pro-contraception, see: easy access to and cheap. A study in Missouri showed that "Women and teenage girls who were given free contraception of their choice through the St. Louis program saw dramatically lower abortion rates: 4.4 to 7.5 abortions per 1,000 women, compared to an area average of 13.4 to 17 abortions per 1,000 women and a national average of 20 abortions per 1,000 women."

[jimkeller]

I concur. I like to think such a realization would come about as part of the open and honest discussions about sex in the home, and since being pro-contraception actively runs afoul of the beliefs of certain subsets of Christianity, I tend to leave it unstated.

[jimkeller]

Yeah, I'm also very concerned about voter access. I agree that it should be in every party's platform, though, of course, I'm not terribly hopeful. It's the nature of government that elected officials want to choose their voters instead of the voters choosing them. Deliberate disenfranchisement is only part of that. There's also the persistent gerrymandering, the deliberate entrenchment of Democrat and Republican into the law instead of allowing parties to grow and die naturally, and the repeated restriction of who may or may not appear on the ballot in the first place.

[jonahmama]

I think the right's "real motive" came out in the what Romney said right after "binders full of women." He responded to a question about pay equity by saying essentially that qualified women are hard to find and furthermore (and in my view more importantly) that they need special accommodations at work, such as flexible schedules. He knows very well that most businesses in this country and still owned and/or managed by men, and he is basically telling them, it's ok if you don't hire women or don't pay them equally, because after all having them around is more inconvenient, difficult and costly for you as a business owner. It's not that they want women to have children, it's that they want to take away the choice from women regarding how many children to have and when. When a woman has no control over her reproduction, she is at constant risk of getting pregnant, and potentially becoming a "burden" to her employer. Thus even if she has no children yet, or never wants any, she is a risk, and as such denying her equal pay, promotions,