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| Open for Bidness but Closed for Thinkin (onlyinamericablogging.blogspot.com) |
Initiative 26 in MS would declare someone a person the moment their parents met at the sock hop.
Politico asks: should this pass? HELL NO! This legislation is beyond atrocious. Beyond what it does to women (essentially making them handmaidens for Mississippi) but what does it say to those who might be considering moving there to, maybe...create jobs! You all remember job creators: they sit at the right hand of Zeus on Mt. Loophole, waiting for further tax breaks to create jobs, even though taxes are at historic lows and they still aren't creating jobs cause of the tough regulations of paying a worker more than a dollar a day so let's move our factories to South America...wait, sorry...where was I?
This type of legislation (much like the 'heartbeat' bill in Ohio) speaks not to the very small population that would ever have fertility questions but to a state's population as a whole. What does it say when you as a state tries to end run the Constitution? It says we may be open to business, but we are closed to thinking people. We are still hailing the amazing life of Steve Jobs, and people of all political stripes are in agreement that he was a legendary inventor and business man. You think Jobs would locate a plant in a state where as soon as a couple starts talking about baby names that they are considered parents? No! Richard Florida's "creative class" is not going to make Jackson a sweet tea-laced Portland or Austin when the right to birth control is being compromised. Take a look at the teenage birth rates in Mississippi: you think denying access to contraception is going to improve that? Hell, they can get birth control now and they are still as fertile as the Delta itself.
But at its heart, that is the reason this type of legislation catches on and why conservatives punctuate every sentence with "I believe it should be left to the state." Instead of this being a nation based on the rich tapestry of different histories and personalities, we are becoming a country of "don't come to my state unless you are just like me." Is this what taking your country back looks like? I do not have hate for these people: I just don't understand them. I believe they love the whole world...as long as that world is flat.
Republican candidates embrace this kind of stuff, at least in the primaries. It allows for them to out right-to-life each other. The sanctity of life becomes paramount to their platforms, but they tend to forget about a sizable constituency: the living. They are all about the idea of a person, but a real living person, like the Occupy movement, are shiftless hippies who need to get a job. Hey, Dr. Moreau: what if these frozen embryos grow up to be shiftless, drum circle lovin' hippies? What's you going to do then?
How come there are people who will shoot a doctor but swear they are about the sanctity of life? Is anyone else bothered about this? I have a personal attachment to this argument. Dr. David Gunn, the physician who was shot at a Florida women's clinic nearly 20 years ago, was the same doctor who delivered my baby brother in 1977. Irony, thy name is ignorance. They will kill for you, but once you are born, you are on your own! Thrive, rugged individualist! We love children; we just don't think we should educate them or provide them health care.
As far as presidential candidates go, I am sure that Wednesday morning political television will have candidates like Santorum and Bachmann telling the audience their feelings and that God spoke to them about Initiative 26, much like He did about their candidacy. I do have a question for the field: did God tell all of you that you are called to be president? I mean, isn't that kind of cruel? Is God like the mother from Prince of Tides that tells all her kids that he or she is her favorite? Kind of jerk move, if you ask me. And if God can tell you to run, how come he can't tell you how to break 10 percent, bottom dwellers?
Initiative 26 should fail: the future of Mississippi depends on it. But to those who push this issue that is not a concern for them: they want Mississippi to stay firmly rooted in the past.
