Rand Paul And Idiot Conservatives

I'm a conservative. I'm a conservative in the sense that I'm actually pro-small government. I'm not pro-small government when I like it, or when it fits ideologically with my other beliefs. Other "conservatives" like small government, unless that is applied to the military, or pro-choice, or things that economically affect their constituents.

In this ideological school is Rand Paul (professional idiot), who recently, while arguing with a representative of the energy department about regulations that affect things like light bulbs, refrigerators, and essentially anything that consumes electricity. He's arguing that the government shouldn't be restricting our choices and increasing prices with laws.

He asks the rep whether she's pro-choice. She responds after an awkward pause that she's pro-choice on light bulbs. He then comes back with this shockingly stupid statement.

"You're really anti-choice on any other consumer item we've listed here."

Before we've even gotten into the ideological issues, he has just called abortion a consumer item. Really? I've never thought of it, or anything that I can have done to my own body as a consumer item. He's likening the process of aborting a fetus... to refrigerators.

But, again, he's only conservative as far as his ideology allows him. He is explicitly anti-choice. He has NO PROBLEM telling a woman what she can and can't do with her own body. But regulations that are, at the very least, intended to prevent lasting damage to the environment are right out?

Many of the regulations that he's against are, I think, stupid regulations, but at least they've got their heart in the right place. This is opposed to Paul, who's heart isn't even in the right place. It's planted firmly in the Bible. His head is certainly planted firmly in the clouds.

Is there any non-religious reason to believe that aborting a fetus, even a very advanced one, is anyway even close to murder? No, there isn't. If we define a human as more than simply a body and the product of the brain, then a person doesn't exist until possibly well after the baby has been born. A human likely exists before a baby is born, and whether that happens at the point of viability (about 24 weeks) or later is debatable. But while that is debatable, the fact that the mother is, in fact, a fully-functioning human is not.

But Paul doesn't care about that. He thinks that it is more important that we have the freedom to buy cheap, inefficient refrigerators than to give women rights over their OWN BODIES. Gotta' love that old, white guy logic.

And on an economic note, he's complaining about these regulations driving up prices, specifically arguing that "You raise the cost of all the items with all your rules, all your notions that you know what's best for me." This doesn't make sense since durable goods have been tracking well below inflation for a long time. Services have been increasing wildly, but televisions, refrigerators, toilets, air conditioners, lawn mowers, and many of these other pet peeves of Paully Boy are likely cheaper as a function of inflation than they ever have been. So how, exactly, are these regulations raising the prices on all of these goods?

Oh right, I forgot, when you're an Austrian economist, you don't need data. It just gets in the way of your feelings.

Unplanned Stupidity

A woman by the name of Abby Johnson is causing quite the hullabaloo by defecting from Planned Parenthood and lambasting her former employer as an "abortion machine." After reading the headline, I was a bit concerned, but have since calmed down. Both she and her book are doing nothing but preaching to the choir.

If she had been a person who said "I still believe in pro-choice, but Planned Parenthood is not the way to go about it," then that would have been a damning indictment of the organization. Instead, we have yet another religious wing nut attacking the organization for explicitly religious reasons. She is against abortion in any situation, even rape and incest. She now prays outside abortion clinics. She even went into the organization already strongly religious. This is not a level-headed woman.

I'm glad that this woman tried to do what she thought was right, but she ended up on the same imbecilic side of the debate as the extremists that she laments as not being reasonable or helpful. Her beliefs are just as extreme, the only difference is the form of the behavior that those beliefs take.

Damnit!

We're not supposed to do this! This crap is done by the side with the crazies on it. There is some information that makes it sound like the guy who did the shooting was more pissed about the graphic images the victim had on his signs, so it may have little to do with actual pro-life/choice debate. I certainly hope that's the case.

That still doesn't excuse the death threats received by the pro-life group. Nasty letters? Fine. Your mother wears army boots? Great! I'm going to kill you? No! It doesn't work. You can't call them retarded extremists if you go and do the same thing!

Anti-Abortion Protester Shot to Death (NYTimes.com)