Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Playing Dice With the Looniverse


Charles C. W. Cooke:
We live in a world of soundbites, in which context is breezily relegated to the shadows and hysteria is positively encouraged. As Aldous Huxley observed, “an unexciting truth may be eclipsed by a thrilling falsehood” — and, in our age, how they are. We are subject, as Huxley predicted, to “the development of a vast mass communications industry, concerned in the main neither with the true nor the false, but with the unreal, the more or less totally irrelevant.” Take a look, for example, at what Richard Murdock, a Republican running for the Senate from the state of Indiana, said yesterday:
I believe life begins at conception. The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.
Okay! I looked, and he seems like a thoroughly awful human being.
Now, compare this with the headlines today:
Talking Points Memo: GOP Senate Nominee: Rape Pregnancies Are The Will of God
Salon: Richard Mourdock, misogynist
Huffington Post: Richard Mourdock Slammed For Saying Pregnancy Resulting From Rape Is ‘Something God Intended’
ThinkProgress: GOP U.S. Senate Candidate Calls Rape Pregnancies A ‘Gift From God’
Associated Press: Mourdock: God at Work When Rape Leads to Pregnancy
Daily Kos: Another crazy Republican rape theory
The Atlantic: Republican Senate Candidate Says Rape Pregnancies Are a ‘Gift from God’
BBC: Fury at US candidate rape comment
Okay, I looked at those too. They are reasonable.
It was unwise of Mourdock to range into discussion of theodicy in the current environment. He, as Huxley might have put it, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.” Nonetheless, it was clear what he was saying. For anyone possessed of even a passing familiarity with the argument against rape and incest exceptions, his point should not have been difficult to grasp. (Therein, one suspects, lies the problem.) To wit: If an unborn child is indeed a life, then how it became one — however ghastly that was — is rendered irrelevant. This position could be summed up by saying that “life is life is life,” and that its sanctity cannot be diminished by the circumstances of its creation.
Oh, I get it. This is why the word "plan" does not mean "plan" and in fact a "plan" is irrelevant and THAT is the "plan".
There are myriad philosophical and moral arguments to be offered on this question, but Richard Mourdock has made no secret about the position he takes.
It says right there in small print on the label: "*Myriad philosophical and moral arguments may not include those around destiny." SUCK IT MILTON!
This is not news, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous. As Mourdock subsequently explained:
“What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life. Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don’t think that. That’s sick. Twisted. That’s not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life.”
Glad that's settled. Nothing in there about fore-ordained rape at all. God is a gift-giver, the gift is life, and if his instrument is sometimes a rapist's penis, well, BABY SHOWER!

OKAY THEN UPDATE:

Baby shower as requested.



This is my present to the world.

19 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

I have some headlines, too:

Consecutive stories on the Marketwatch news ticker:

Oct. 24, 2012, 12:00 p.m. EDT : Vote in Ga., win a chance at a gun

Oct. 24, 2012, 12:01 p.m. EDT : One dead as man shoots up Ga. megachurch
~

mikey said...

Excuse me. Just one quick question.

What is it that makes you decide that the subsequent abortion then is somehow NOT god's will?

Smut Clyde said...

Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don’t think that. That’s sick. Twisted.

Possibly, then, it was foolish of him to describe impregnation from rape as "something that God intended to happen".

I do like this new argument whereby the actual meaning of someone's words should be ignored, because if you listen to the words then that person is "sick" and "twisted", and therefore *you* are the sick twisted person for listening to them.

Substance McGravitas said...

Oh stop pulling the literal-meaning card.

Smut Clyde said...

"BABY SHOWER"???

How Trurl Built a Femfatalatron to Save Prince Pantagoon from the Pangs of Love, and how Later he Resorted to a Cannonade of Babies.

tigris said...

BABY SHOWER!

If you freeze the babies first you are hail-bound for sure.

Smut Clyde said...

Entire drifts of snowflake babies!

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

This is not news, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Yeah, it's not like Mourdock will play any role in establishing policies that will actually impact the lives of real women in the real world... right?

Hamish Mack said...

How the Fuck can Charles "Careless Wanker" Cooke, eat meat? God made that life and he cut it off early.Or if God did not make that meat animals babies, how can he eat them? it's godless meat.

Smut Clyde said...

Substance McG is showing babies.

Smut Clyde said...

This is not news, and to pretend otherwise is disingenuous.

Yeah, that's kinda weird. The toxic misogynist policies espoused by Mourdock should not become an election issue, because he has been espousing them for a while.

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

How is babby shower formed?
~

Sirius Lunacy said...

Yeah, that's kinda weird. The toxic misogynist policies espoused by Mourdock should not become an election issue, because (he has been espousing them for a while) women should never have been given the right to vote.

Fixated for more Mourdockery

mikey said...

Hmmm. "Careless Wanker".

Interesting. How does one earn such a title? Do you merely neglect to finish, or is it more about carelessness about WHERE you do it, or perhaps manifested in a half-hearted cleanup effort?

I'm pretty sure I'm much more of a careful wanker...

J— said...

I feel so distracted, as I take my hand and wander to the bathroom

Hamish Mack said...

Did I say "Careless Wanker"? So sorry, I meant "Carless Wanker" Riding a bicycle a man can get mighty lonely.

Smut Clyde said...

Memo to self: do not lend bicycle to AK.

Substance McGravitas said...

Not only did George Michael write Careless Wanker, he became one.

M. Bouffant said...

My favorite bus station men's room graffiti ever: "Show hard for blow."