Part the Second
Capracus, like our other anti-abortion neighbors, cannot
answer the FAP conflict, so he tries to seize it, once again reminding that the only reason the movement will acknowledge the proposition of a woman's human rights is to remind us why she shouldn't have them.
This, of course, is weak tea, so it needs to be stregthened not with sugar but, rather, a stiff dose of bitter:
"If a 5 year old child unintentionally threatened me with a gun," Capracus explains,
"I might be forced to kill it to protect myself."
The assignation of existential condition―that of a five year-old unto a zygote, by general anti-abortion rhetoric, or subjectively determined
"suitably developed fetus"↑, in Capracus' explanation, as if what constitutes suitable development is somehow an objective, fixable standard―is pretty obvious, but what stands out to me is the lack of various useful talents and attributes if one gets down to the last resort of killing the five year-old with a gun.
Like the cops in the San Bernardino tale. We can say what we want about liberal media conspiracies and copy editing, but it doesn't seem the lieutenant speaking to the television station actually thought it possible that his officers would actually shoot a three year-old. It doesn't seem to have even occurred to him, at least not in that statement. And, well, you know how I feel about cops; if
they can figure it out? Then again, I'm not actually surprised they can; even at my most cynical, I would still necessarily concede they're smart enough to figure
this part out. Nor do I think they would shoot a five year-old. A six year-old? Depends on the department, and from there the individual officers, but overwhelmingly, no, though in some cases, why not. But that invokes a larger asserted problem with police, which I don't think is in effect for our uncreative neighbor.
But he's just trying to seize the issue, and the pretense that it's somehow new or unconsidered, especially in the face of observable evidence in the historical record, is part and parcel; it's a really standard maneuver that only works if people let it. You know, kind of like how we changed our standards for how a president should look in 2007, when Hillary Clinton was still the frontrunner, yet Republicans tried to sieze the glass ceiling initiative by arguing it sexist to hold Sarah Palin to the same standard as other vice presidential candidates? And Rich Lowry wrote that
awesomely sexist bit about how she won on sparkle by titillating men? I mean, come on, how clumsy was that? Or the one congressional candidate in the 2012 cycle―it seemed almost a passing note at the time, a distinct but seemingly insignificant signal amid a wash of misogynistic signal and noise―who tried to argue that allowing a rape survivor to abort was visiting further violence on her? This shit is
so fucking clumsy, and for some reason we're expected to spot such arguments some degree of merit in order to assert a meritocratic discourse. And if we apply the full context of such arguments, standard oral, intrauterine, and emergency contraception are all acts of violence against women.
It is a Machiavellian-capitalistic formula; the ends justify the means. That is to say, it doesn't matter to them how much damage they do to the discourse, as long as they win. And this turns out to be part of the Republican magic; it lets large numbers of fringe ideologies feel included and important.
One of the early warnings about the internet was, "Remember, any nut with a web page now has a pulpit". Where most of us took this as an actual warning, others saw an opportunity for calculation; it is easy enough to point to World Net Daily as a primary example: It is far more than the actual nuts with web pages and newsletter mailing lists. Rather, it is the conduit by which such potsherds are introduced to the second or third tier of our political discourse, proximal enough to have tremendous influence―
e.g., Birtherism.
Still, though, by embracing this absurdity, the Republicans have engaged a complex, risky tactic that will pay large dividends in the short and middle terms, and eventually crash in the longer. It is not sustainable unless we should presume, say, the RNC, to be consciously and wilfully aiming for dystopia, in which case, the crash would be part of ... the ... I mean, "part of the plan"? I really disdain conservatives, but they ain't the Devil, and they clearly haven't the discipline. This is just straightforward, Machiavellian-capitalist profiteering without any useful consideration of the future.
But the thing is that Capracus' incredibly clumsy execution is, really, no worse than we're seeing on the electoral level, and, yes, that is part of the magic about raising these conservative absurdities to some asserted degree of legitimacy. Consider Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush, two people very much removed from the everyday experiences of average Americans, yet they do have an inroad, a common bond with the average conservative voter:
Whatever else you might be, and whatever other talents you might have, you are absolutely terrible at running for president. That applies to most of us from sea to shining sea. Nearly all of us. Barack Obama is
great at running for president. Hillary Clinton is not as good. But Mitt?
Terrible. Jeb?
Shockingly awful. And in a conservative marketplace that rallies to some significant degree around ritual licking of wounds, yes, being terrible at running for president actually adds to the weird Republican everyman magic.
This false legitimacy can feel glamorous, or seem dazzling, but the marketplaces pretending that legitimacy are either epistemically closed, such as the anti-abortion and several other driving conservative movements, or indifferent, as we see with the press, whose job is to remember that facts are merely one side of the argument.
But I would suggest this is part of the reason our neighbor, and others in the Sciforums experience or even at large in the American public discourse, might feel so comfortable making absolutely no sense and showing such vituperation about certain issues; the examples from on high really aren't any better.
Nor does my describing their behavior as sickness help close the rift, but I'm also out of reasons to not describe what I'm seeing; this is really, really blatant. And, in the end, it is only reinforcing of epistemically closed solidarity.
This is not responsible discourse; what they ask is
dangerous, and as we see pretty much any argumentative route they come up with is a fucking minefield. There really is no way for them to do what they are trying to do without being seen doing it, and that basic fact somehow hurts their feelings. It is circular, epistemically closed, very nearly ritual maneuvering. It's all they have left.
―Fin―
