July 11, 2006
It isn't a policy reversal...
Read this article and then think about what the White House is saying:
Article on Guantanamo Bay Detainees vs. Geneva Convention
It is rather interesting to see that this is "not really a reversal of policy ".(Tony Snow, Whitehouse spokesperson) Being told by the Supreme Court that provisions of the Geneva convention apply to these detainees is absolutely miles away from the Bush administrations previously asserted stance of 'enemy non-combatants' not deserving those very protections. And how can we fight a war on terror if there are no enemies, merely "people who have been plucked off the battlefields who are not combatants in the traditional sense"? (Tony Snow, Whitehouse spokesperson) Damned inconvenient, just happening to be plucked off a battlefield without being a combatant. I suppose they were just doing the Battle of Bull Run thing and taking in the view.
I guess it all makes sense; if we're going to redefine the term 'war' as something that can be waged against 'enemy non-combatants', then we might as well embrace a redefinition of 'policy' as something that doesn't mean a set of rules, guidelines or ethics by which a particular endeavor is prosecuted. While the Supreme Court has ordered that the rules and ethics with which the US must approach the 'enemy non-combatant' have changed, The Policy hasn't. Thank God for a little constancy in our lives. Glad to know The Policy is intact.
Thankfully, while congress and the Whitehouse throw around redefinitions of the term 'policy', they'll also finish redefining 'civil liberty'. I think we can trust Bush and this Congress to ensure that, in prosecuting our war against no one, our own civil liberties will end up as unchanged as The Policy.
June 22, 2006
Sometimes you just want to shoot yourself in the face...
Just when you think that the debate over sex education in this country could not get any more ignorant:
An article on a new anti-Human Papillomavirus vaccination that has been proven to reduce cervical cancer
For fear that holes would be poked in our bass-ackwards 'abstinence only' sex education policy, so-called 'experts' are maintaining that we should not provide a new, effective vaccination (Gardasil) against Human Papillomavirus, a virus that has been directly tied to instances of cervical cancer. These experts fear that providing a vaccination to youths and teenagers will cause our society to plunge into Bacchanalian orgies due to a perception of premarital sex without consequences.
Question 1: Why must conservatives always either seek new legislation or modify existing initiatives so that they may force other individuals to follow their narrow minded and misinformed beliefs?
Question 2: Why must society as a whole turn its back on a medical breakthrough that promises to reduce the number of women affected by cervical cancer?
Question 3: If you don't want your children to engage in activities that you don't approve of, then why don't you be a f*cking parent and instill your values into them?
Question 4: Your own children and family aside, why must you vehemently force your value systems on people who are happy to enjoy a medical breakthrough?
Question 5: Why, in a scientific and respected organization such as the CDC, is someone like Reginald Finger, a former medical advisor to Focus on the Family, sitting on the CDC advisory committee? What kind of qualification is it to have worked for a right wing conservative Christian organization that has been known to ignore proven science in lieu of its own misguided religious beliefs?
Question 6: Why has the pursuit of religious freedom become the pursuit of forcing your intolerant beliefs onto others who clearly do not want or share them? How does the so-called separation of church and state permit the usage of pseudo-science and guesstimation to reinforce faith-based legislation that would curtail everyone elses rights to better their own lives and follow their own beliefs?
Seriously folks, I am so sick and tired of conservative Christians feeling like it is not only their right, but their duty to use our government to force their own intolerant, ignorant beliefs onto other people. If your opinion is so absolutely correct, don't you think that we wouldn't need a law for it? Or are they afraid that their 'morality' is so untenable in todays society that its lack of inherent value to non-believers means that legal enforcement is necessary?
After refining their viewpoint a few times for the sake of being somewhere near an arguable position, the position of the conservatives is that they don't want to make it mandatory for the population. With reported figures of up to 70% of women engaging in sexual activity before age 18, it seems quite important that such a vaccination be universal in order to quell the spread of such a virus. As the article states, the fundamental reason that religious conservatives resist the notion of a universal vaccine is 'disinhibition, which the CDC defines as "an increase in unsafe behaviors in response to perceptions of safety caused by introduction of a preventive or therapeutic intervention."'
If only conservatives would take a fraction of the faith they have in being absolutely-right-about-everything-everywhere-always, then use that energy to properly raise their children then maybe they wouldn't have to fear that receiving such vaccinations would turn their children into the whores of Babylon. As it seems these days, conservative parents would prefer that, instead of themselves raising their own families, a heavily amended constitution raise all of our children in a complete moral vacuum. I guess freedom from choice prevents you making the wrong ones. Or any choices.
Question 7: WTF?
June 21, 2006
Welcome...
There is only so much a person can take, and these days our society is veritably stuffed with b*llshit. Sometimes you see or hear something in your daily life so totally outrageous that you have to vent to someone. Considering the likelihood of common sense being syndicated by our irresponsible media, its probably better to take your chances here...