Wide open spaces...with tightly closed minds
Thanks South Dakota. Thanks a lot. I'm sure that you rubes know what's best for the rest of the country. I'm sure that a bunch of extras from "Fargo" understand the complexities of gynecology and obstetrics. You probably all have PhDs in sociology and could teach these pesky blue states about how hard it is to be young, poor, single, black, and pregnant in the American urban landscape. That's why your state government is so well-qualified to dictate reproductive politics for the 99.99% of this nation that doesn't live in a wheat field.
Yesterday on NPR I heard a frigid and self-righteous Dakotan ask rhetorically, "why shouldn't America be more like the heartland?" Honestly, my only conceivable answer to that question would be to run screaming into a wood chipper. America should almost always look to the heartland and do the exact opposite. Why? Because the heartland is whitebread, conservative, and LAME. It's a land full of people who are so out of touch and colloquial that they don't realize what the rest of the country thinks of them. I'm sure that if they had the internet in South Dakota, an irate cowboy would respond with, “we don't care what the rest of the country thinks of us.” That's just fine. In fact, it's an admirable and relatively progressive way to think. It's the essence of being pro-choice. Do what you want, and don't spend any time trying to make decisions for other people. This country is tolerant and free enough to allow its people to have abortions if they want them and to visit megachurches and form creepy rural militias if they don't.
We'll see how this plays out over the next few weeks. I know that there's panic in the pro-choice camps, but hopefully that's premature. Justices Alito and Roberts seem to be intelligent men of reason. Their confirmation quasi-trials were a sham and a microcosm of all that's bad about the Democratic Party these days. Though a bit misguided in their personal politics, let's hope that they can live up to their “strict constructionist” billing when it is applied to a longstanding precedent like Roe v. Wade.
Thanks South Dakota. Thanks a lot. I'm sure that you rubes know what's best for the rest of the country. I'm sure that a bunch of extras from "Fargo" understand the complexities of gynecology and obstetrics. You probably all have PhDs in sociology and could teach these pesky blue states about how hard it is to be young, poor, single, black, and pregnant in the American urban landscape. That's why your state government is so well-qualified to dictate reproductive politics for the 99.99% of this nation that doesn't live in a wheat field.
Yesterday on NPR I heard a frigid and self-righteous Dakotan ask rhetorically, "why shouldn't America be more like the heartland?" Honestly, my only conceivable answer to that question would be to run screaming into a wood chipper. America should almost always look to the heartland and do the exact opposite. Why? Because the heartland is whitebread, conservative, and LAME. It's a land full of people who are so out of touch and colloquial that they don't realize what the rest of the country thinks of them. I'm sure that if they had the internet in South Dakota, an irate cowboy would respond with, “we don't care what the rest of the country thinks of us.” That's just fine. In fact, it's an admirable and relatively progressive way to think. It's the essence of being pro-choice. Do what you want, and don't spend any time trying to make decisions for other people. This country is tolerant and free enough to allow its people to have abortions if they want them and to visit megachurches and form creepy rural militias if they don't.
We'll see how this plays out over the next few weeks. I know that there's panic in the pro-choice camps, but hopefully that's premature. Justices Alito and Roberts seem to be intelligent men of reason. Their confirmation quasi-trials were a sham and a microcosm of all that's bad about the Democratic Party these days. Though a bit misguided in their personal politics, let's hope that they can live up to their “strict constructionist” billing when it is applied to a longstanding precedent like Roe v. Wade.
posted by adelino @ 11:24 AM
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