I am so entirely sick of hearing people say that social issues have no bearing on how they’re going to vote this year. I’m sick of it because it’s an argument based on totally unsound logic.
Let’s first start with the perfunctory jaded with the system argument…
Do you honestly think that voting for a “conservative” or a “liberal” politician is going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference in our country’s governance? I put “conservative” and “liberal” in quotes because I label politicians with those monikers only rhetorically. They run as such and then govern in the interest of the people who can finance their next campaign. George Bush, the non-interventionist, compassionate conservative leaves office as an uber-spending liberal with two wars on his watch (after having won reelection off of the old standby for Republicans who are losing the public opinion—gay bashing). Obama signs onto extensions of tax cuts he promised to repeal during his campaign. Tax cuts in the middle of two decade (+) long wars and we wonder why we have trillions of dollars of debt—can’t be military spending, must be the elderly and the indigent. Better cut their benefits. Obama promises an Employee Free Choice Act, yet workers are being attacked more now than at just about any time in history.
These examples are just the last two presidents. Go back through history and you’ll find an endless cache of broken campaign promises either because they were just outright bullshitting their would be electors or because they got into office with all these high hopes and then realized we’re a tripartite government and not a dictatorship. Either way, people who campaign as either conservative or liberal rarely end up governing as such.
They’re all the same. You think you have a choice in elections? Well, you do. Your choice is between which paid-for politician you want as a figurehead in office. Which Super PAC do you want influencing our leadership? We’ll never have real choice until we stand up to the plutocracy in this country. That’ll never happen until we start caring more about the purchasing of our elected officials than we do about who won American Idol (so the next time you want to bitch about how the country is run, take a look in the mirror first). But if you’re satisfied with the your only real choice being which of the ten McDonald’s you want to stop at within a mile radius then go ahead and continue with your apathy.
Since it doesn’t matter fiscally who sits in the Oval Office because they’re just paid for figureheads anyway, that leaves social issues as the main difference between the candidates. Do you want somebody in office who’ll at least support civil rights, women’s rights, etcetera, or do you want Rick “man on dog,” “aspirin between the knees” Santorum or Mitt “I’m on the side of whatever will get me the most votes and that, right now, happens to be the lunatic conservative fringe” Romney?
When people say they only care about the economy right now, I know they’re doing it with the intent that their elected officials will only focus on economic issues. But when people turn a blind eye to social issues we end up with theocrats trying to weasel their religious dogmas into our law while everybody is looking the other way.
We get Virginia passing government sanctioned rape. We get Chris Christie politicking with marriage equality in New Jersey because he’s prepping for a 2016 presidential run and doesn’t want to piss off the religious ideologues. Christie, you’re a phony and a coward and just revealed yourself as such. Congrats.
We get attempts at anti-abortion legislation pervasive in multiple states Oklahoma, Virginia, Mississippi, and multiple others, not to mention within the federal government.
These so called personhood amendments are just a backdoor way for men to regain complete control over women. They even go further than these ignoramus politicians think they go. Let’s get a little technical for a second. Hormonal birth control works by either preventing the release of the egg from the ovary, changing the consistency of cervical mucus in order to make it harder for the sperm to wiggle its way to the egg, or preventing implantation of the fertilized egg to the uterine wall. Personhood amendments seek to constitutionally define the beginning of life at conception, so in addition to outlawing abortion, they would outlaw some forms of hormonal birth control. These theocrats are hypocrites because, considering 98% of women use(d) birth control, it’s a virtual certainty that even those voting for this legislation have committed murder under the premises that they’re setting forth. Even all those Bible thumpers who think coitus interruptus is okay better reread Genesis 38:9-10. So the next time you’re thinking about pulling out, remember Onan.
**On a side note, do we really need to opine about why a group of sexually repressed religious ideologues are so resentful of women? Religion rejects human nature and when you reject your natural instincts they eventually expose themselves out of frustration, which only leads to harmful conclusions.
These self-righteous theocrats are just arbitrarily defining the starting point of life. They want us to accept that the components of life are the only requirement for life. I’m not here to hold the abortion debate or to offer my own definition of life, but if that’s the case then any woman who’s ever had her period or any man who’s ever jerked off or had a nocturnal emission is a mass murderer. Think of all the lives you’re ending the next time you whip out Titty Titty Gang Bang.
We’re now talking about birth control in this country. Birth control. Are we serious? We’re seriously debating about a woman’s right to use birth control in the year 2012? 98% of women use or have used some form of contraceptive and that includes all those cafeteria Catholics out there who want to pick and choose which parts of their religion to follow and discard whatever doesn't fit their lifestyle. I just have to ask one more time—Are we seriously debating birth control right now? I’m in such disbelief about the fact that we’re discussing this in the year 2012 that all I can do is refer you here.
This is what happens when we say we don’t care about the social issues. Socially conservative ideologues sneak in their woman and gay-hating legislation and slowly try to create theocratic rule. You think I’m exaggerating by calling them theocrats? Their social beliefs are based on their religious principles and they want their religious principles to dictate civil law. That’s the virtual definition of theocracy and whether they like it or not, we are a secular society and that is what makes us great. That I don’t have to live by somebody else’s divine dictum is what makes us a great country, but if we all turn a blind eye to civil rights and equality then one day we’ll wake up under theocratic rule and wonder how we got there.
Social issues do matter. They always matter. A woman’s uterus is not a matter of public policy, nor should gay rights be left in the hands of public opinion. We’re a republic because America values the rights of minorities over the tyranny of majorities. No group, no matter how large, has a right to impose their religious idealism onto others. But when the citizenry says that they don’t care about these wedge issues that’s exactly what happens. Please care enough about your country to not let that happen.
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