Category Archives: disappointing democrats

Properly theirs.

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As we saw earlier this week, Sarah Palin has come under attack for choices her teenage child has made.  It shouldn’t have to be said at a fucking feminist blog that criticizing a woman for the choices that her grown children make is pretty fucked up, and for fuck’s sake I would rather not be defending a right wing fuckwit, but here it is.  If we want people to believe that we think teenagers are old enough to make complex decisions regarding their reproductive systems and their sexuality then we need to start showing that we believe it.  That begins with recognizing that children actually have a right to make decisions that are properly theirs to make.
Psychologists Adler and Dreikurs (apart from their views on homosexuality which I thought were horrible, but I recognize that it was an older time and we have evolved in our understanding of humanity slightly) are pretty spot on when telling us that children respond and make decisions based on how equal they feel.  When a child is raised to believe that they have agency over what happens to them they will make better decisions.  The theory here is that by standing back and allowing children to make decisions that are properly theirs to make we are encouraging them to learn while giving them a safe environment to do so.  I don’t know that they saw sexuality as a normal part of this learning process, I haven’t read all of their writings, but I very much see sexuality and the choices regarding it in this light.
Sexuality has to do with their own bodies.  At some point as children mature into adults they need to know that they and they alone are responsible for those bodies, and that no one has a right to make decisions regarding their body other than themselves.  The choice to engage in sexual activity, while unpleasant to think about for some parents, is a choice that is properly our children’s to make in their older childhood.  It is foolish for us to pretend that our children (our teenagers, if I am not clear about that) are not thinking about or already engaging in sex.  Applying Adler and Dreikurs here, instead of shaming them and pretending that our children are not sexual creatures we should be doing everything in our power to educate them and give them all the tools to properly make decisions regarding their own sexuality.  This is what we call giving them a safe space to make mistakes.
And the safe space is the most important part.  Sometimes we forget that making mistakes is part of growing up.  We didn’t learn to talk in complete sentences and we didn’t learn to walk without falling down a few times.  We learned by seeing these things done, and by trying.  As parents we need to provide a place where children won’t crack their skulls open during their first steps, but we need to stand back and give them the room to take them.  Even if they fall.
Unfortunately for our children, sometimes that fall will result in an unplanned pregnancy.  Part of this safe space that I mentioned earlier is information.  Free from our judgement and free from our own inclinations to choose one way or the other we should be making sure that they have all the knowledge there is regarding birth control, and all of their options should they become sick or pregnant.  Knowing that we trust them with this knowledge is part of making them feel like equals in their relationship with us, their parents.  This encourages them to make good decisions based on good information when making decisions that are properly theirs to make.  Knowing that they are responsible for their own choices encourages them to make better choices, and knowing that they have our love and support should they screw up (no pun intended) makes them more confident.
We may not like dealing with the sexuality of our children, but we can no more ignore it that we can ignore the fact that they will eventually grow out of those clothes and may one day call our music lame.  At some point we need to realize that what they do with their bodies really is their own choice.  Children grow up and make choices that don’t always fall in line with what their parents believe or want, however recognizing that children should be able to make decisions that are properly theirs to make also means that parents are not to be shamed for them anymore than we should shame a teenager for making a decision we don’t agree with regarding their body.
And that is part of being Pro-Choice.

I fucking hate you

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If you ever thought or wrote this about Sarah Palin:


Let’s face it, if she had really wanted to spare her daughter the harsh
glare of the spotlight, she could have respectfully declined the job

then you are a piece of human scum and I fucking hate you. Bonus points if you are a woman.

What the fuck is wrong with you people? I can understand you are gung ho on voting the party that hates you and treats you like scum, but at least have the fucking decency of leaving others alone.

You know, I am starting to see Sarah Palin as a feminist hero, for the shit the so-called progressives and feminists lob at her for having the audacity to not kis Barky’s ass while possessing boobs. They don’t hate her for being a republican- behold the similar hatred Hillary got from them, they hate her for being a woman. Plain and simple. What is worse is that people who were upset when it happened to Hillary think it’s OK to pick on Palin on those exact things.

The truth of 2008 finally comes out: Hillary didn’t lose because she was Hillary, or wrong, she lost because she is a woman and women who run for political power are horrible people . Nothing they will ever do will be good enough for it. How dare they forget they are inferior, worthless and generally irrelevant?

Mind you, per se, Hillary didn’t LOSE. She was robbed of the nomination. But that is another animal isn’t it?

I fucking hate people.

Florida And Michigan Must Be Counted.

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If the Democratic Party leadership does not find a way to seat the delegates from Michigan and Florida, either by holding a re-vote (which I think is needed in Michigan, as all the candidate’s names were not on the ballot), or finding some way to count the votes that were cast in the Primaries, McCain will win by default.

John McCain will become the next President.

Not because the nominee will be un-electable.

Not because legions of disgruntled Obama or Clinton supporters will cross party lines to vote for McCain.

Because the election will be stolen.
As it was in 2000, and in 2004.

And a party that has selected its nominee on the backs of the blatant, public disenfranchisement of millions of voters will have no moral authority to stand up to sneaky tactics like “malfunctioning” machines, misleading poll information, confusing ballots, hackers, misdirection, ID challenges, and caging lists. Much less a U.S. Supreme Court that leans even farther to the right than the one that handed George W. Bush the election he lost.

And I know, I know, there are “rules” that were broken. But here’s the thing. Those rules were broken by politicians playing games.

Not by the voters.

We didn’t all get together one day and decide we didn’t want our votes to count.

So the next time you hear someone say, or are tempted to say yourself, “They broke the rules,” I want you to try something. I want you to replace that phrase with one of these ones:

What were you doing on the street at that hour?
He ‘matched the description’ of the suspect.
If you don’t want ‘attention’ don’t dress like that.
Their parents are here illegally.
They’re ‘pushing their lifestyle’ on the public.
She was ‘leading him on’.
He’s a ‘problem child’ who can’t learn.

Because you’re basically making the same argument.

Thanks DNC, for helping our votes not to count

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I’m on the way out the door, but this just makes me mad.

It’s now even more useless to vote blue in this reddest-of-red states.

Here’s a vastly oversimplified timeline:

  1. GOP-controlled Florida Legislature decides to play the “we wanna hold our primary first” game.
  2. Florida Dems decide not to hold a whole separate election even though the existing date would have us voting ahead of the “approved” early voting states.
  3. DNC punishes Florida voters by stripping our delegates (yes, kiddies, that means Florida Dems have no say in who runs for Prez) and telling the candidates not to campaign in the Sunshine State

ARRGH!

i’ll write more later, i have more to say, and i’m sure there’s more to all this that i’m not informed about, but right now it’s just one more reason I’m disappointed in the Democrats.