Huh? Who thinks of babies as “punishment”?
Better yet, what kind of father would describe babies as “punishment”?
Well, Sean Hannity, for one, describes unplanned pregnancies that result in babies as a punishment for sex he doesn’t approve of. From his anti-freedom tome Let Freedom Ring:
We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the consequences.” It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
So there’s the point of disagreement. Right wingers who wish to deprive women of the right to choose abortion, of contraception access, and of sex education believe babies are a punishment for sex. Obama said they shouldn’t be a punishment for sex, meaning he believes they are not a punishment for sex, but that right wing policies make them that way.
If you are against babies being treated as a punishment for sex, you agree with Obama.
So why are these wingnuts freaking out? Could it be that they’re lying sons of bitches? Sources say yes.
63 Responses to “Right wingers projecting again”
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Obama called them on their shit? In easy to understand language?
Excellent! Rock on!
It’s a sex-drenched culture–from movies, music, and magazines to TV, radio and the Internet–that glorifies premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex. You name it, you can find it, and without looking too hard.
I’ve been looking for rough, kinky sex for a while now and yet it continues to elude me. I need to find out what clubs Hannity is going to.
Hannity gave Rudy a pass for almost the same thing Obama said (except that Rudy didn’t say anything about STDs as punishment.)
The funny thing is that Hannity probably wouldn’t have given, say, Fred Thompson a pass for it, since he’s a Rudy partisan.
Does anyone else get the feeling that the editor had to heavily trim the litany that Hannity put forth because it was starting to get a little out-of-hand? It’s pretty borderline creepy as it is, but I can totally see Sean working himself into a froth as he describes “premarital sex, promiscuous sex, extramarital sex, kinky sex, rough sex, and gay sex, steamy, wet-hot sex, muscle-spasming, teeth-chattering, grunting delicious orgiastic sex with nipple clamps and cock-rings and dessert toppings. Strap-on sex with fur-trimmed handcuffs and sweaty… Editor’s note: SEAN, this goes on for three more pages. Could you maybe just leave it at “gay sex”?
As I noted on my blog this morning, Obama’s statement about sex ed echoes comments about gay rights that Chris Dodd made in a debate last year. Both candidates have young daughters, and both of them invoked their daughters in their responses — Obama said he wants his daughters to have the information they need to stay safe and the freedom to decide how to handle an unwanted pregnancy, and Dodd said that he wants his daughters to have the same rights if they grow up to be lesbians that they’ll have if they grow up straight.
I’m flabbergasted — and really pleased — to see politicians who are fathers of daughters talking about their commitment to protecting their kids’ sexual autonomy. It’s a huge departure from traditional father-daughter narratives of suppression and control, and I think it’s an extraordinarily cool thing.
“We live in an age characterized by the maxim “If it feels good do it, regardless of the consequences.””
….no, we actually live in an age when a worn out phrase like “if it feels good, do it” - which was emptied of any meaning 30-years ago and turned into a cliché dog-whistle about as stupid as “just say no” - still passes as cutting-edge Reichwing thinking about the modern world.
I guess that would help explain why they can’t understand Obama. He speaks a language, English, that they don’t understand. They can only hear and speak Right Wing Trope…
I thought Obama made a good point (one I agree with), but expressed it badly (I’m sure he’d like a do over - who among us would not make a few poor choices of words campaigning 24 hours a day … forever).
Hannity distorted it to make Obama look bad.
Amanda distorted Hannity to make him look bad.
Fair enough.
consequences are not punishment. redo and resubmit. consider explaining what consequences you think are reasonable for what actions.
consider explaining if a man paying child support for 18 years for a baby he doesn’t want is a consequence or a punishment.
use your old statements to backup your position.
kthxbye.
After brooding about it for a bit, I think the forced-birthers’ argument is that having a baby is one of the (potential) consequences of sex, but everybody just loves teh baybeez, so if you point out that forcing a 14-year-old to give birth is punishment, that just proves that you hate babies. IOW, since the “consequence” is something that’s usually good — a baby — it’s not really punishment.
Of course, they lost control of this construction as soon as they started talking about STIs as a “consequence” of sex. Once you do that, you tip your hand that the other consequence — the baby — is also supposed to be a life-ruining disaster like AIDS would be. You can’t argue that one is a good consequence and one is a bad consequence once you say that having a baby and getting AIDS are the same thing.
I think the forced-birthers’ argument is that having a baby is one of the (potential) consequences of sex, but everybody just loves teh baybeez, so if you point out that forcing a 14-year-old to give birth is punishment, that just proves that you hate babies. IOW, since the “consequence” is something that’s usually good — a baby — it’s not really punishment.
Yeah, but that’s, like, the most stilted and circular logic ever. Mainly because the connotation of the word “consequence” is that one is referring to a bad thing. Very few people would say something like “One consequence of buying a dog is that you get to play with your cute puppy all the time.”
If the wingers really didn’t see babies as a punishment, they wouldn’t refer to them as one of the “consequences” of sex at all. For instance I doubt that next on the list after STI’s and pregnancy would be “tons of really fantastic earth-shaking orgasms”.
Exactly, dumbass who goes by the name of “nope”. You think the child support a punishment, i.e. “consequences” for actions. We think you you be able to have sex without “consequences”, i.e. punishment. So use a condom.
It focuses on a (pun intended) fundamental dissonance of their ideology. Babies are wonderful. Pregnancy outside of marriage is horrible, awful, sinful, demeaning, and a sign of great moral decline. A pregnant married woman is “blessed.” A pregnant unmarried woman is a tramp. Frozen fertilized eggs donated by married heterosexual couples to other married heterosexual couples are “snowflake babies.” A frozen fertilized egg donated to a homosexual woman is a vile sin.
What they’re really thinking, behind all of the fog and camouflage, is that women should be married and having as many children as God provides them. Any woman having sex outside of marriage is therefore a harlot and should be properly married as soon as possible to a man who will manage their wicked and sinful ways, especially if they get pregnant. The dissonance only presents itself when they try to cage their words around references to the specialness of womanhood or the glories of motherhood or nonsense like that.
The tension between their need to not present their true ideology before an audience who would be, to say the least, unreceptive and their beliefs causes all sorts of comically hypocritical verbal juggling.
I myself have used the “no baby should be a ‘punishment’” line when talking to anti-choicers directly after they’ve talked about how there should be CONSEQUENCES to sex.
The only difference here is that the anti-choicers are turning around and saying “Oh, so you think that babies are a punishment?”
It’s such an immature way of arguing. I myself pulled the “I did NOT say that and you can’t prove I did!” line … when I was seven.
consider explaining if a man paying child support for 18 years for a baby he doesn’t want is a
consequenceresponsibility or a punishment.Fixed that for you.
I like how Hannity tries to turn Obama being a father against him in this argument, and it makes me wonder if Hannity has kids. Because since I had one, I am much more vehement that no one should ever be forced into parenting. I mean, I was pro-choice before, but now it is this visceral emotional reaction that this is something that is so difficult and life-transforming, even when it is something that you sought out, that nobody should be forced into it. Of course, I know feel the need to mention that I love my son more than life itself and he is the light of my life. But it’s a lot of work, and it’s a job you can’t walk away from when you get tired or fed up, and yeah, Hannity is an asshole.
Personally, I’d prefer to live in a world where no man has to pay child support for 18 years for a kid he doesn’t want. Which is why I’m all for closing up the gaps between men and women as much as is possible, so that males and females will share enough of the same formative experiences and subscribe to enough of the same values that neither side will be inclined to think about inflicting babies on the other as revenge.
Actually, if you think about it, the “no baby should be a punishment” trope ought to work out really well as a basis for the advocacy of birth-control. Shame on us if we let the righties seize it and use it to promote the opposite result.
“consequences are not punishment. redo and resubmit.
Abort, Retry, Fail.
“consider explaining if a man paying child support for 18 years for a baby he doesn’t want is a consequence or a punishment.”
- besides What Amanda Said, I’d add: no, in my view it’s taking responsibility for oneself and others, something we all should strive for - with the caveat that being human, we’re going to make mistakes and act irresponsibly, which is why it’s important to have chances to make things right.
[ah, previewing, I see Onieros beat me to it]
The substitution of “consequence” for “punishment” naturalizes the thing that the anti-choice folks are trying to impose.
Pregnancy and STDs are possible consequences of certain kinds sexual activity. Parenthood is a possible consequence of pregnancy. You had sex without using birth control, or the birth control failed, and now you’re pregnant? That’s the consequence. The pregnancy is the consequence. The decision of whether to carry the pregnancy to term is the consequence.
When anti-choice folks say “there should be consequences to the decision to have sex,” what they mean is “there should be consequences, and these are what they should be.
Did someone turn up the troll-o-meter? WTH?
–OHHhhh, it’s the fallout from the Amazon book launch. Got it.
Huh? Who thinks of babies as “punishment”?
I do, for one. That’s why I never want to have one.
And I know several parents who secretly think of babies as punishment as well, but they’d never come right out and say it.
“Obama…and Dodd” are “politicians who are fathers of daughters talking about their commitment to protecting their kids’ sexual autonomy.”
The GOPers are hypocrits. Do you think if either of the Bush twins or McMaverick’s daughters came home at age 16, pregnant -they wouldn’t be rushing them off to the nearest clinic to handle a “family” matter? They certainly don’t want THEIR daughters punished by being a teenaged mother, they just don’t want anyone else to have the same choices.
The pro-life logic is actually pretty easy to follow, if you’re being honest about it.
1) One shouldn’t view babies as punishment (first quote). This is a very controversial statement. But that’s where Hannity’s alternative argument comes in:
2) If pro-choicers insist that we consider bearing unwanted children as punishment–as Spencer in the comments clearly does (Gee, who’re the “lying sons of bitches” now?)–then it’s still a consequence, not a punishment.
Punishment implies someone punishing you. If you break a law, the government punishes you with imprisonment. If you have sex, as Brook pointed out, a natural consequence could be pregnancy (and of course one possible natural outcome of pregnancy is childbirth, which Brook doesn’t admit). A natural consequence is not a punishment, even if the government could, through ethical or unethical means, prevent you from having to face that consequence.
For instance, if I get into a car crash, by whoever’s fault, the government could alleviate the natural consequence by replacing my car. But I’d be hard pressed to say I’ve been punished if the government doesn’t. If anything, you have a claim against the person who crashed into you, which is exactly how we treat pregnancy cases. You can get child support.
Ha ha, you fell into your own trap of assuming anyone that disagrees with you must be a rightwing nut and can’t be a good liberal, just one that, heavens to maude, disagrees with you.
I am definitely pro-choice. Have all the legal abortions you want.
But that doesn’t mean that consequences are punishments. And sure, you can substitute responsibility for consequence, but guess what? If you are responsible for your actions, you live with the consequences.
My point is that Amanda et. al., like to claim that men need to pay for 18 years of child support for kids they don’t want, EVEN if the problem was that the birth control failed. EVEN if they did use a condom.
Well you hypocrites claim, if you don’t want the baby don’t have the sex, but having made the choice to have the sex you need to be responsible and live with the consequences . Sounds like you are either a) slut shaming men, or b) claiming that consequences are not punishments.
Well, I don’t think we should slut shame men or women and I don’t think that consequences are punishments.
It’s sad to see you folks fall on your faces so quickly in a discussion. Having to rely on friendly but wrong stereotypes…. Having to call people who dissent names and to otherwise “other” dissenters. Having to reinforce group think. Being unable to take responsibility for your past statements.
You folks can do better than this.
Please redo and resubmit.
Except, of course, that a car is not a person.
If you get into a car crash, by whoever’s fault, and you are disabled, the government could alleviate the natural consequence with SDI (Social Security disability payments). I’m assuming that you think this is wrong, and people who are disabled for whatever reason should receive no government help? Or should we only help the “innocent” disabled people who were injured through no fault of their own (like rape/incest victims are allowed abortions) but refuse help to the “bad” disabled people who contributed to their own accident?
So if a woman wants an abortion, but the man doesn’t want her to, and she has the abortion anyway, that’s perfectly fine with you, yes? After all, by your estimation, the correct person — the woman — will be paying the consequences for her actions.
We’re arguing that a baby is a PERSON, not a consequence. A baby is not a car, as Jeff was trying to claim above.
I think there could be some flexibility in child support laws if the father officially gave up his parental rights before the child’s birth or within 2 weeks thereof.
However, if you’ve been paying child support for your child for two or six or ten years and then suddenly decide that it’s “punishment” to have to do that, it doesn’t make you a rebel. It makes you an asshole who accepted a responsibility and then tried to weasel out of it.
Because Hannity was totally trying to say that abortion was ok and that the “consequence” of having sex was just that you’d have to go through a surgical procedure. I’m sure.
No, the consequence that Hannity is referring to is that having sex will result in BECOMING A PARENT, even if it is AGAINST YOU WILL, which to a lot of people is a form of PUNISHMENT.
A natural consequence is not a punishment, even if the government could, through ethical or unethical means, prevent you from having to face that consequence.
Tell me if any of these sentences makes sense to you and sounds like something somebody would actually say.
Some consequences of premarital sex include self confidence, a closer bond with your partner, and rip-roaring orgasms.
One of the consequences of being late to work was that I missed this especially lame meeting and didn’t get saddled by any of the make-work tasks that the boss was doling out.
The major consequence of psychedelic drug use is that you see totally sweet visions and stuff.
So if a woman wants an abortion, but the man doesn’t want her to, and she has the abortion anyway, that’s perfectly fine with you, yes?
Perfectly fine? No. But it’s her body, her choice. I was in this state with my wife. She wanted an abortion. I was very much opposed. So no, I cannot say it is perfectly fine. Still, I recognized that frustrated though I was, it was her body, her choice. She eventually decided to have the child. It probably was a big cause in our breakup (she initiated, not me.) And though I am still sad about our breakup, that kid is an absolute treasure to us both.
However, if you’ve been paying child support for your child for two or six or ten years and then suddenly decide that it’s “punishment” to have to do that, it doesn’t make you a rebel. It makes you an asshole who accepted a responsibility and then tried to weasel out of it.
Who’s talking about that?
I think that when a woman becomes pregnant, the father should be informed, and if an abortion would be legal the father should be able to opt out of “fatherhood”. If the mother is not responsibile for the father being notified in a timely manner, he should get some period of time when he can reject fatherhood.
The only other time a man should be able to stop child support is if it becomes known the child is not his. And I think that whenever a child comes into contact with “the state”, a paternity test should be mandatory (and then and dna info should be purged) Coming into contact would be: divorce/custody issues, CPS involvement, Police involvement, giving away a child for adoption, …. This would be to ensure the actual father is identified and notified of what is happening.
Note to MPG. Who cares what Hannity says? The guy is an abusive rightwing pig. The question is what Amanda and you all are saying. Are you consistent or not? The answer is no, you are not consistent. Consequences are not punishments for men. Consequences are punishments for women. There are lots of consequences of getting out of bed each morning. Society is not there to remove all consequences from your life. That’s not a punishment.
You know, cooties were cute when you’re like eight years old. Making it a life lesson? Not so cute.
That line actually makes me wonder if this guy is a parody. Who the hell seriously suggests COOTIES is a valid thing to teach to children?
nope said:
False. You’ve confused the conservative and feminist points of view.
If you genuinely believed that, you wouldn’t be here trying to argue that consequence and punishment aren’t interchangeable terms in conservative discourse. The Bible says “You will know them by their fruit.”
Being responsible for consquences does not necessarily imply doing nothing to mitigate them. Sex ed, contraception and abortion are all mitigating factors. If you didn’t believe they were punishments, you wouldn’t be so against them.
False. Intent is important. If a man doesn’t intend to get his partner pregnant, he needs to have a vasectomy AND use a condom. This is men taking responsibility for the possible consequences of their aactions. If they fail to take these mitigating steps, they should be held liable for any expense as a result of that failure to mitigate. If that includes child support for a child they didn’t want, too bad. Should have had the snip.
False. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” is a conservative argument. No feminists I know have ever advanced this argument.
If this were true, you wouldn’t advocate for “living with” one’s responsibilities; in this case, for the woman to carry the unwanted child to term and then raise it on her own without inconveniencing the father for child support, because he wore a condom and the condom broke.
On the contrary, it’s your arguments which have been proved to be false and misguided. Stereotypes are a favorite in the conservative’s arsenal, but are rarely deployed by feminists because we tend to evaluate each person as an individual, rather than making blanket statements about groups. The “othering” of dissenters that you refer to is blatant projection, seeing as how it is another instrument in the conservative arsenal. As for lacking responsibility for past statements, I fail to see any evidence of that here. Please elucidate us as to the specific points you are referring to.
I believe I just handed you your ass on a plate.
See above. ‘Nuff said.
Tell ya what, you bring me a bible and I’ll piss on it for you. I have no idea what’s in that thing.
If a man doesn’t intend to get his partner pregnant, he needs to have a vasectomy AND use a condom. This is men taking responsibility for the possible consequences of their aactions. If they fail to take these mitigating steps, they should be held liable for any expense as a result of that failure to mitigate. If that includes child support for a child they didn’t want, too bad. Should have had the snip.
You’re a hoot. Now if men want to have sex by your standards they need a condom AND a vasectomy. And so why don’t women just get their tubes tied (reversibly?)
If women want sex, and Amanda loudly and publically claims to believe they do, why should any man without a vasectomy be any more liable than any women without a tubal ligation?
False. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time” is a conservative argument. No feminists I know have ever advanced this argument.
Um, you just advanced it yourself, didn’t ya when you wrote:
If they fail to take these mitigating steps, they should be held liable for any expense as a result of that failure to mitigate. If that includes child support for a child they didn’t want, too bad. Should have had the snip.
I guess you’re a conservative and not a feminist.
Actually, that’s been my point on many occasions.
Time for lunch, back later, enjoy the day my Church Ladies!
Bullshit. Did you miss Brooklynite’s (#18) & Mighty Ponygirl’s (#26) comments? I don’t think any reasonable feminist would argue that getting pregnant is itself punishment, or that having to get an abortion is itself punishment, or that having to take emergency contraception is itself punishment — those are consequences. What is punishment is not allowing a woman to end a pregnancy if she wants to, forcing a woman to give birth if she doesn’t want to, forcing a woman to raise a child if she doesn’t want to.
“…enjoy the day my Church Ladies!”
I love witnessing the cutting edge of the art of insults…
…too bad nope gets his from the bargain bin…
But what if the government passed a law that made it illegal for you to replace your car? This analogy doesn’t really work in this context, because what we’re talking about is the government preventing women from dealing with the natural consequences of sex in the way that they want to. As Brooklynite so astutely pointed out, when “pro-lifers” talk about women having to face the consequences of sex, they mean the consequences that they think women should face (i.e. being forced to carry a pregnancy to term).
One more thought.
If I climb up on the roof because I want to see what it looks like from up there, and I fall and break my arm, it’s possible someone might say the cast is the consequence I have to suffer for being careless.
But nobody’s going to tell me that medical care for my injury should be illegal, or that my decision to get the broken bone set means that I’m unwilling to face up to the consequences of my actions.
Consequences are consequences. Punishments are punishments. The two have very little to do with each other.
I’m very glad you brought this up, nope.
Let’s discuss how much easier it is for a man to get a vasectomy than a woman to get a tubal ligation in the U.S. Where any man with the ability to pay for one can walk into a urologist’s office and have a vasectomy under local anesthesia for less than a few thousand dollars, women are subject to myriad requirements in order to get a tubal ligation.
First off, if she’s white, she must be over a certain age, married or in a monogamous heterosexual relationship such that she’s under the control of a man for a specified duration of time, and already responsible for a certain number of children, otherwise, no doctor will perform the tubal ligation.
By contrast, if she’s a poor woman of color, doctors will try to sterilize her against her will, even if she wants to have a(nother) child.
Both of these extremes are reflections of the larger society that believes that women’s bodies are public property and should be subject to the aims of the affluent white males who make public policy rather than to their own agency and by extension, humanity.
Let’s return to the question of liability, however, because what you’re arguing is that if a man uses a condom, and it breaks or leaks, he should be able to disavow responsibility for any resulting child.
You’re also arguing that fathers should be informed of and in a position to decide the outcome of any pregnancy whenever a pregnancy occurs.
Both of these positions oppose the idea that women are fully human with a right to bodily soveriegnty and autonomy. I’m just curious as to how you can resolve these positions with the view that you’re not a social conservative.
After all, the very definition of misgyny is the belief that women aren’t as human as men are, and you seem to display it in spades.
Wrong. One of the best methods of disciplining young children (mainly toddlers) is natural consequences– you draw on the table with your crayons, we take the crayons away from you. Natural consequences can most definitely be a punishment.
While pregnancy may be a natural consequence of sex, there is absolutely no reason to think that the ONLY consequence (as in “result,” as some above are–incorrectly– trying to argue the pro-forced birth crowd is using the term) of pregnancy should be childbirth. Not only do many pregnancies spontaneously abort, but since we have a safe technology to end unwanted pregnancies, there is no reason to suggest that abortions are an avoidance of the consequences of sex, unless you believe that a baby is a punishment for unapproved sexual conduct. One way to “take responsibility” for an unwanted pregnancy is abortion.
Yes, we are all aware that it pisses you off that you cannot force women to have abortions or not have abortions as YOU please. But guess what, children have rights and they have the right to have their basic needs met. Since you fathered that child, the state says that you need to ensure that that child has its needs met at a certain (pathetically low) level. Mothers have the EXACT SAME responsibility to their children, even in cases of birth control failure.
Nope seems to be shorthand for “Nope, not a drop of intelligence in sight”
Well, but also, men are NOT any more liable than women — they are both equally obligated to pay child support. What he thinks is “more liable” is the fact that he can’t ultimately choose whether the baby is born or not. But that’s a consequence (heh) of biology, and one that you simply have to deal with. He should also note that there are women who comment here who are sympathetic to the idea of somehow allowing men to avoid the obligation to pay child support if they do not want the child, if there is ever any reasonable and feasible way to do that (which is doubtful, imo).
history_mom beat me to it.
having to take emergency contraception is itself punishment
I don’t know, it surely feels like one when you realize you need it on New Year’s Day, and you have such a raging hangover that it feels like punishment just getting out of bed to google-search a pharmacy that might be open.
But otherwise, right on, sisters.
This is why I keep two doses on hand at all times from an online pharmacy. One is for me to take in case of a contraceptive failure, and the other is for me to give to any friend who might contact me after a contraceptive failure. Doses are replaced as they are used.
I follow this procedure because there too many pharmacists who might try to use the “conscience” clause to bar my access to contraception. Women must always be vigilant of methods we can employ to elude these unlawful elements.
In other words, your decision to divorce was a consequence of your disagreement, yes? No one from the government came to your house and ordered you to divorce. No one from the government denied you a divorce when you went to have the marriage dissolved. You were able to choose the consequences from that conflict with your (ex-)wife and decide on the best one for all of you.
(I am, of course, assuming you acted like a rational adult when your ex-wife told you she wanted to divorce. That may be too much of an assumption with the trolls we get here, but I’ll give you the benefit of that doubt.)
Now let’s look at pregnancy. As others have said above, pregnancy may be a natural consequence of sex, but childbirth is not inevitable. What we’re objecting to is people like Hannity deciding on behalf of strangers that the only possible outcome of a pregnancy is childbirth. If you think that the automatic consequence of sex is pregnancy, and that the only possible outcome of a pregnancy is childbirth, then you are, in fact, viewing the child that results as a punishment.
Consequences are consequences. Punishments are punishments. The two have very little to do with each other.
Yep, that’s right. That’s why Amanda is being ridiculous to take a statement of consequences and claim it’s a statement of punishment.
If you think that the automatic consequence of sex is pregnancy, and that the only possible outcome of a pregnancy is childbirth, then you are, in fact, viewing the child that results as a punishment.
Well I doubt that Hannity, who is a dipshit, thinks the automatic consequences of sex is pregnancy, although I suspect he would agree that a natural consequence of sex is pregnancy.
But for whatever reason someone may be anti-choice, and I am very much pro-choice, it’s not at all the case that anti-choice people have to view carrying the child to term to be a punishment. Assuming they believe, and this is what they say, (and you and I both agree we believe that part of empowerment is listening to what women actually say and respecting that) that the fetus is a person, they are not punishing you by saying you have to carry the fetus to term. They are saying it’s a natural consequence of being pregnant.
They are not saying you have to carry the baby to term as a punishment. They are saying the baby is human and should not be murdered. And thus your carrying it to term is a natural consequence.
They are saying, just as the conservative Mezosub did above, that if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. Which in fact, is what Amanda and you Church Ladies say all the time with regards to men. How do you say it? How conveeenient.
Note to history mom: take a refresher on natural vs. logical consequences, cause you’re wrong.
Wrong. One of the best methods of disciplining young children (mainly toddlers) is natural consequences– you draw on the table with your crayons, we take the crayons away from you. Natural consequences can most definitely be a punishment.
If you draw on the table with your crayons, you have a dirty table from now on. Natural consequence. If you, the person in authority, takes the crayons away: logical consequence.
punishment vs. consequence? just read through the thread. over and over you all claim that the state forcing a man to pay for 18 years of child support for a kid he doesn’t want is a natural consequence and not a punishment. And then you turn around and say that being forced to carry a fetus to term is a punishment and not just a natural consequence.
Let’s ask this, basically after the first trimester, you are forced to carry the fetus to term. Is that a punishment? If so why? If not, why not?
Thank you Church Ladies. I do like the tea you’ve set out. It’s so much fun dishing the gossip and your sun dress is dreamy, but her sun dress? well she’s a patriarchy suck up.
I think we’re all missing the central point here, which is that “nope” is INSANE.
Just like all the rest of the MRAs.
Oh, snap!
Remember, painful childbirth was a punishment meted out to Eve right there at the beginning of it all…so even if children aren’t a punishment, you still get to pay for just plain bein’ a sinful, corrupt female!
Agreed, Cath.
Also, the natural consequence of miscarriage has already been discussed in posts above, but nope dismisses that with so much talk of a fetus being a human person.
Not that a swift blow upside the head with a frozen cluefish will do any good to someone who’s as obviously batshit as nope is, but his whole diatribe can be explained with Psychology 101.
Here we go.
Once upon a time, nope legally entrapped some unfortunate woman and as a result of his irresponsibility with birth control, she became pregnant with his offspring. Despite the fact that she wanted to have an abortion, he emotionally abused her and I speculate that he may have withheld life necessities from her (access to healthcare or the financial means to procure healthcare) until the emotional distress became too much and she relented, thereby carrying the fetus to term. Thankfully for her, she managed to grow a spine some time between when she delivered said offspring and the present time, and filed for marital dissolution. Now nope is on the hook for child support, which he resents having to pay to a mere subhuman who managed to escape from domestic survitude under his purview. So, he comes here, defeated and unable to get an erection because all he seems to come across in his offline life seem to be these feminists who won’t put up with his nonsense. He’s broke, lonely, and no sane woman within fifty miles would consent to sex with him because he is morally and intellectually repulsive.
So, he comes to Pandagon to teach us feminists a lesson by writing some rambling screed about the difference between consequences and punishments, tying himself into a logical-reasoning knot in order to make everything come out such that he can try to rationalize and justify the emotional distress that he inflicted on his ex-wife (who is still a subhuman in his estimation) because it makes him feel better about being such a pathetic failure, morally bankrupt and bereft of even the companionship of a subhuman who he considers beneath him in every way.
It’s a textbook case of displacement; worker gets disciplined by his boss, then comes home and kicks the dog.
Woohoo! Let’s play e-psychiatrist! the fun game anyone with a dialup can play!
For example, if you get into fun argument with somebody on the internet about something trivial, the e-Psychiatrist will instantly tell you that you have an anti-social personality disorder or a schizoid disorder.
The diagnosis of an E-Psychiatrist can be used as e-vidence against you in an internet trial,
Actually, I love my kids dearly, and I pay not only the mandated amounts but way over and above that for all sorts of extracurriculars. Soccer, horseback lessons, music lessons, books — all sorts of stuff. I was volunteering at their school today.
But I do enjoy your diagnosis. You lose at an argument, so your opponent is a brutal misogynist rapist that can’t get laid, is ugly, and is unable to maintain an erection. Wow. Projection much, or is this what constitutes logical argument at a feminist Church Lady salon? Or both?
(This is interesting too, to see how a feminist like yourself refers to a marriage between consensual and presumably equal adults: It’s a textbook case of displacement; worker gets disciplined by his boss, then comes home and kicks the dog. You really are for equality between the sexes aren’t you? You don’t feel superior to anyone do you?)
Enjoy Church Ladies you are wild and crazy!
Srsly, can anyone read Mezosub without seeing her lips all pursed together while she accuses me of being a fornicator?
Now, who could nope be? Could nope be…SATAN?
Okay, I’ll be back for more Church Chat with the Church Ladies of Pandagon later! I have to go and teach my kids some science and other reality based disciplines.
“Actually, I love my kids dearly, and I pay not only the mandated amounts but way over and above that for all sorts of extracurriculars. Soccer, horseback lessons, music lessons, books — all sorts of stuff.”
Wow, so you mean you are actually doing exactly what any other reasonable father would do? Good Show!
That really is one of the greatest things about the Era of Bush Jr. - expectations have been lowered so much, just doing the minimum is considered (by some) praiseworthy…
“I was volunteering at their school today.”
…okay nope. But I’m pretty sure the court order requires you to stay at least 1500 feet away from them at all times…
That’s right. And you pay those fees directly to the soccer league, the equestrian school, the music instructor, the bookstore operator, and you donate your time to the school. Anything to avoid having to give the actual value of those services to your ex-wife in cash, no matter what the personal inconvenience to yourself. At this point, it’s all about how much pain you can inflict on her for leaving you, and if you can look like the loving, nurturant dad in the process, then all the better.
*sigh*
Not only morally bankrupt, but mentally retarded.
Everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows that the displacement I was referring to was you coming here and arguing with people whose rhethorical skills far outpace your own. It had absolutely nothing to do with your failed marriage or your other failed relationships with other people in your life. NOW you’re really projecting. Here’s the cluebat one more time: It’s not men that I feel superior to…it’s YOU. Here’s an axiom - if more than three people have the same argument with you, or simply dislike you for the same reason, it’s not them, it’s YOU.
You are the one with the problem. As Cath has said, you’re batshit. You need professional and pharmaceutical intervention.
Ha ha, so much fun. Can’t defeat nope’s arguments, so we must insist nope is a pedophile, insane, needing pharmaceutical intervention, mentally retarded.
(By the way Church Lady Mezosub, we don’t refer to those with “developmental disability” as “mentally retarded”. Your chauvinism, ignorance, and privilege is displaying itself again.)
I guess I’m having an e-trial, right MikeEss? ChurchLady M.Sub?
Well I guess that’s one way to defend the Church of Pandagon from the argument and evidence that Pope Amanda is a hypocrite. But I think more progress can be made if we stay on topic and you try not to be abusive of others.
Perhaps though, this is your quaint way of conceding defeat. ???
(Regarding payments, the ex and I split many of the costs. She pays directly for one activity, I another, we reconcile every few months. We both schlep the kids to the activities. But your theory is nice, and probably does say something about how you might arrange affairs.)
Anyway, if you want to continue with the e-trial call your witnesses at any time. Or, you may wish to learn how to be more sensitive and open up and then you can express your enlightenment on how you were wrong. Or, just learn to be a bit more gracious in defeat — it will go along way for you Church Lady M.Sub.
Dear nope,
I suggest that you’d be more comfortable posting at Daily Kos with the rest of the ‘liberal’ MRAs. But if you insist:
The distinction you’re trying to draw between ‘natural consequences’ and ‘punishment’ is that there’s a necessary causal link between action and consequence, but not between action and punishment. So if a woman becomes pregnant after sex, it’s a consequence, because of the causal link - that is, sex causes pregnancy by itself; no one needs to step in after the sex act and make the woman pregnant. If a woman has sex and then is jailed for adultery, on the other hand, it is a punishment, because there’s no necessary causal link between sex and jail. This is what you’re getting at, right?
Consider, though, the conservative viewpoint.
1. For a conservative, there is, in fact, someone who steps in and decides whether not a woman will become pregnant after sex: God, Who is, in Christian thought, both the efficient and the final cause. And if sex is a sin, and if God ‘chose’ to make a sinful woman pregnant, then pregnancy is a punishment (albeit one from God, not from man). Thus, when conservatives talk about ‘avoiding the consequences’, they mean ‘defying God’s righteous judgment’ - it is manifestly a ‘consequence’ in the punishment sense. You do the crime, you do the time.
2. If pregnancy was merely, in the conservative view, a consequence of sex, as how lung cancer is a consequence of smoking, there would be no concerns about ‘avoiding the consequences’. Very, very few people believe that lung cancer should go untreated; the only reason to stop women from mitigating the ‘consequences’ of sex is the belief that those consequences are just, and so avoiding them would be unjust - ie, that they are punishments for unrighteous behavior.
3. Consider: if the natural consequence of sex is pregnancy, what is the natural consequence of abortion? Why, the end of a pregnancy, of course. So if a woman is denied her right to an abortion, the result (a baby) is imposed on her by another force, and so is no longer a consequence of sex but a punishment for sex, if you get the distinction.
And so, even if in some technical sense children aren’t ‘punishments’ for sex, it’s certain that in the conservative zeitgeist promulgated by Hannity et al, children are considered a punishment, and it’s absolutely right to call them on it.
Also, on a site note: no one gives a shit about how much child support you (or men in general) pay. This discussion has nothing to do with child support. I suppose you show up in threads about female genital mutilation, too, and cry copiously over your circumcision? Get the fuck over yourself and stop trying to make women’s issues all about Teh Men.
Ithaqua, yes that’s how e-trials go. Church Lady M.Sub says that I don’t want to pay child support, and then when I discuss it briefly, she attacks again and again, and when I say she is hijacking the thread,…
You come in and accuse me of making it all about child support and all about teh men!!!!
it’s certain that in the conservative zeitgeist promulgated by Hannity et al, children are considered a punishment, and it’s absolutely right to call them on it.
I think you will get further if you respect your opponents as human and try not to other them. I strongly doubt that Hannity et. al., see children as a punishment.
Your 3. is just silly. To the anti-abortion crowd who think that abortion is murder, which is what they say they consider it, your analogy is epic fail. A natural consequence of you playing loud music all night is your getting evicted by the landlord for disturbing the other tenants. You are not allowed to murder your landlord. Not being allowed to murder your landlord is not a punishment. Being evicted is not a punishment.
Not being able to murder your fetus is not a punishment. (Note: I am pro-choice and do not consider 1st trimester abortion to be murder.)
But this gets back to the question you did NOT address.
Ithaqua, what about third trimester abortion?
In essence you are forced to carry second and third trimester pregnancies to term.
Is that a punishment? Or a consequence? If it is a punishment, why? If it is not a punishment, why not?
If it is not a punishment, why the difference of opinion between first and second and third trimesters?
kthx
Nope, the fact that you have to lie and deceive to advance your position shows who has the moral high ground. Hint: Not the liar like you.
Huh? And where have I lied?
I hear your bluff, but lay your cards out on the table so we can all see them.
“Ithaqua, yes that’s how e-trials go. Church Lady M.Sub says that I don’t want to pay child support, and then when I discuss it briefly, she attacks again and again, and when I say she is hijacking the thread,…
You come in and accuse me of making it all about child support and all about teh men!!!!”
Nope, your very first post (#8) on this thread:
“consider explaining if a man paying child support for 18 years for a baby he doesn’t want is a consequence or a punishment.”
You brought a - stupid, stupid! - child support analogy into this discussion. Where have you lied, huh? Well, there’s lie #1.
“I think you will get further if you respect your opponents as human and try not to other them.”
Tell you what. When conservatives start respecting women (and minorities) as fully human, I’ll return the favor.
“I strongly doubt that Hannity et. al., see children as a punishment.”
Hannity et al see *pregnancy* as a punishment, for the reasons I went into in my earlier post. Pregnancy is, basically, the presence of a fetus within a woman. If they don’t see children as a punishment, then they must not believe that a fetus is an actual child. But even beyond that, the eighteen years or so that a woman has to devote to raising her child is most certainly part of the ‘consequences’ that Hannity gloats over, and the social onus of a ‘bastard child’ - now thankfully almost extinct, but still championed by conservatives - is part of that ‘consequence’/punishment as well.
“A natural consequence of you playing loud music all night is your getting evicted by the landlord for disturbing the other tenants”
Er, no, that’s a punishment. There’s nothing about loud music that necessarily leads to eviction in the same way that sex leads to pregnancy; eviction is not automatic in that situation; the landlord has to (1) know about the music, (2) decide whether or not to allow it, and (3) evict you. But it does help my point that you don’t seem to understand the distinction you’re trying to make.
“(Note: I am pro-choice and do not consider 1st trimester abortion to be murder.)”
If you were genuinely ‘pro-choice’, you wouldn’t add the qualifier. Being pro-choice means believing women are fully human and so fully qualified to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Letting women have a slightly longer leash before you force them to bear your children is not ‘pro-choice’.
“In essence you are forced to carry second and third trimester pregnancies to term.
Is that a punishment? Or a consequence? If it is a punishment, why? If it is not a punishment, why not?
If it is not a punishment, why the difference of opinion between first and second and third trimesters?”
I repeat: for a genuinely pro-choice viewpoint, there is no difference between first, second and third trimesters, because it’s about the *rights* of the *woman* - a concept you seem to have trouble understanding - and not about a lump of cells leeching parasitically off of her uterus. Unless you can somehow show that a woman becomes less human during the second and third trimesters, the epic failure is all on your end.
And, I repeat again: the natural consequence of an abortion is the end of a pregnancy. If the law seeks to punish a woman for the thoughtcrime of desiring an abortion, and does so by preventing that natural consequence from occurring, then it’s a punishment.
“You are not allowed to murder your landlord. Not being allowed to murder your landlord is not a punishment.”
Your landlord is a human being possessing various rights, property or otherwise. If you try to violate those rights, you will be blocked and punished, and justly so. If your landlord was residing inside your uterus and refusing to leave, he would possess no rights that would override your right to evict *him* by any means necessary, even if (for some ridiculous reason) your landlord couldn’t survive outside your uterus. The fetus, similarly, possess no rights that override the rights of the woman involved, and talking about the fetus - the implicitly MALE fetus - is simply a distraction from the genuine issue, which is whether or not women own their own bodies.
[If this posts twice, I apologize.]
“Ithaqua, yes that’s how e-trials go. Church Lady M.Sub says that I don’t want to pay child support, and then when I discuss it briefly, she attacks again and again, and when I say she is hijacking the thread,…
You come in and accuse me of making it all about child support and all about teh men!!!!”
Nope, your very first post (#8) on this thread:
“consider explaining if a man paying child support for 18 years for a baby he doesn’t want is a consequence or a punishment.”
You brought a - stupid, stupid! - child support analogy into this discussion. Where have you lied, huh? Well, there’s lie #1.
“I think you will get further if you respect your opponents as human and try not to other them.”
Tell you what. When conservatives start respecting women (and minorities) as fully human, I’ll return the favor.
“I strongly doubt that Hannity et. al., see children as a punishment.”
Hannity et al see *pregnancy* as a punishment, for the reasons I went into in my earlier post. Pregnancy is, basically, the presence of a fetus within a woman. If they don’t see children as a punishment, then they must not believe that a fetus is an actual child. But even beyond that, the eighteen years or so that a woman has to devote to raising her child is most certainly part of the ‘consequences’ that Hannity gloats over, and the social onus of a ‘bastard child’ - now thankfully almost extinct, but still championed by conservatives - is part of that ‘consequence’/punishment as well.
“A natural consequence of you playing loud music all night is your getting evicted by the landlord for disturbing the other tenants”
Er, no, that’s a punishment. There’s nothing about loud music that necessarily leads to eviction in the same way that sex leads to pregnancy; eviction is not automatic in that situation; the landlord has to (1) know about the music, (2) decide whether or not to allow it, and (3) evict you. But it does help my point that you don’t seem to understand the distinction you’re trying to make.
“(Note: I am pro-choice and do not consider 1st trimester abortion to be murder.)”
If you were genuinely ‘pro-choice’, you wouldn’t add the qualifier. Being pro-choice means believing women are fully human and so fully qualified to make their own decisions about their own bodies. Letting women have a slightly longer leash before you force them to bear your children is not ‘pro-choice’.
“In essence you are forced to carry second and third trimester pregnancies to term.
Is that a punishment? Or a consequence? If it is a punishment, why? If it is not a punishment, why not?
If it is not a punishment, why the difference of opinion between first and second and third trimesters?”
I repeat: for a genuinely pro-choice viewpoint, there is no difference between first, second and third trimesters, because it’s about the *rights* of the *woman* - a concept you seem to have trouble understanding - and not about a lump of cells leeching parasitically off of her uterus. Unless you can somehow show that a woman becomes less human during the second and third trimesters, the epic failure is all on your end.
And, I repeat again: the natural consequence of an abortion is the end of a pregnancy. If the law seeks to punish a woman for the thoughtcrime of desiring an abortion, and does so by preventing that natural consequence from occurring, then it’s a punishment.
“You are not allowed to murder your landlord. Not being allowed to murder your landlord is not a punishment.”
Your landlord is a human being possessing various rights, property or otherwise. If you try to violate those rights, you will be blocked and punished, and justly so. If your landlord was residing inside your uterus and refusing to leave, he would possess no rights that would override your right to evict *him* by any means necessary, even if (for some ridiculous reason) your landlord couldn’t survive outside your uterus. The fetus, similarly, possess no rights that override the rights of the woman involved, and talking about the fetus - the implicitly MALE fetus - is simply a distraction from the genuine issue, which is whether or not women own their own bodies.
Bun-bun-bun-bun
(By the way Church Lady Mezosub, we don’t refer to those with “developmental disability” as “mentally retarded”. Your chauvinism, ignorance, and privilege is displaying itself again.)
I point out, dope, that that well known bastion of right-wing thinking and conservative rhetoric, Mother Jones magazine, is happy to use the term “mentally retarded”. Go look it up - Oct 2007, p.36.
Obviously American liberalism isn’t of one mind as regards the term. You were saying, dickhead?
Because there is a difference between bodily autonomy (being able to do what you want with your body) and financial autonomy (being able to do what you want with your money.)
Nine months of having another person drag every bit of the what they need to survive from your body , against your will, followed by the pain and risks of childbirth, is a completely different sort of thing than having to pay money. Not comparable at all.
And woman will have to pay money, either way, for an unwanted pregnancy - either for medical care to see it through, or medical care to end it, and also pay (probably more than the father would pay in child support) if she actually raises it. So I’m not inclined to be sympathetic to men who complain that they might suffer financially from an unwanted pregnancy, when a woman will certainly suffer financially from an unwanted pregnancy, whatever she chooses.
Nope:
What in the world set you off? I see no reason for name-calling–it does not advance a discussion, and may betray ignorance or worse.
Surely you are not seriously arguing that the two words in question can never carry the same meaning, or that Hannity’s words could not possibly be read to imply that he thinks people who have sex without regard to his norms should be punished for doing so.
In a context where the writer classifies a particular behavior as abnormal or bad, and then says that people who so behave must accept the “consequences” of doing so, I don’t think it is much of a stretch to equate “consequences” with “punishment.” They look quite a bit alike when thought of as behavior-modification tools—as Mr. Hannity does here.
To be sure, interpretation depends on normative perspective, and Pandagon Readers’ perspective may make it more likely that they will read Hannity this way.
And they may have gotten him wrong. If so, the fault is Hannity’s, not theirs. He should more carefully choose his words.