Soapbox

"I'm very proud of my pro-life position."

    Have you ever noticed? That's always how they begin their explanation of the chains they want to put on their daughters and ours- by declaring how proud they are of their tyranny. They use phrases like "pro-family" and "sanctity of life" without reference to a single position, belief or bill that actually helps any  families or people  who are different from them.
    "Why are you proud?" I want to ask them "and what do you actually do to promote life?"

    After all, nobody is "Pro-abortion". Nobody wants it to be anything other than a last resort,  yet today in the enlightened country of America we find ourselves in the mind-boggling position of discussing- yes, we actually need to debate!- whether or not a woman who has been impregnated by violence should be allowed to decide for herself if she will bear that child.
    Does she, who was already robbed of the right to say "No" in the most brutally personal way possible, have the right at last, in this tragic moment,  to make her own decision, to say 'yes' or 'no'?
    Apparently,  the all-male  jury is still out on that.

    And what of these (mostly) men who want to assault her again: want to hold her down, rip away her will and her future and force their opinions and their beliefs inside her, forcing her to bear the fruit of their twisted values for the rest of her life? 
    They always begin explaining why they are going to violate her freedom and independence by saying how  proud, how fucking proud they are of  their God-given right to turn women into brood mares, obligated to sacrifice their very bodies as incubation pods for the almighty male seed. Just as rape is not about sex,  forcing a woman to bear a child she did nothing to conceive is not about life- it's about power, and that power is what they're most proud of.

    And of course most of them don't want women to be able to prevent pregnancies in the first place, because their  2000 year old fundamentalist theology clearly  knows more about contraception than mere doctors. So since birth control pills and emergency contraception for rape victims  "seem like murder" to the pastor of their church,  then women mustn't have them.  (And  really, a woman shouldn't be allowed to choose whether or not to let a man's magic seed grow anyway: that's just too emasculating.)

    And they're usually the first  to advocate balancing the budget by cutting prenatal care clinics for poor women, infant nutrition  and Head Start. After all- we don't want to encourage women to be dependent on the government by giving them the idea that the children we forced them to bear are entitled to eat! 
    They don't support rights and protections for gay families and can't wait to take away the guarantee that our children won't be denied medical care because of a pre-existing condition.  They vote against domestic violence laws, equal pay, clean air and water, and are actually willing to consider getting rid of child labor laws.

     Nothing about any of their policies speaks to life. It is a bleak, blasted wasteland of fundamentalist entitlement  filled with the brimstone stench of "God only loves people who think like me" theology.

    But look, rape victims aren't pregnant because they were slutty enough to have sex with their husbands or boyfriends, so surely we all agree that they, at least should be allowed to decide for themselves, right? And women whose lives are endangered by their pregnancy- how is it pro-life to insist that both the baby and the mother die??

    Well, it may not sound life-affirming to stand by and let a woman die when you could prevent it, but God's will is mysterious. They are quite sure that birth control is a sin and obviously it was God's plan for you to be attacked and raped or you wouldn't be pregnant, right? So your beliefs about all that… they just don't matter. 
    That's called "freedom of religion", see? Freedom to force their beliefs onto your body, to rape you with their family values, to murder you in the name of pro-life.

    So  we find ourselves in a place where, in the 21st century, these men look carefully into the camera and inform the women and girls of America that if they were raped and got pregnant: beaten and attacked,  drugged and abused or preyed upon by their father while in middle school- that's a bummer, but  hey, make some lemonade, ladies!  Relax and enjoy it! It was God's plan!
    Some girls rape easy, they say, and anyway, they're pretty sure that a woman can't get pregnant unless she secretly wants it- and isn't that convenient!  Girls, if you open your legs to do that nasty thing, you deserve the baby, as punishment… I mean a gift! A gift from God! The truth is, not all rape is rape-y enough to turn women from heartless, death-eyed sluts into unfortunate victims in their mind, and rather than run the risk of a few women lying about rape in order to get an abortion, we should just close that door altogether, don't you think?

   These dead-eyed men will never know the joy or the terror of a life growing inside them, never know the anguish of watching their future slip away as they stare at a pregnancy test, never know the horror of learning that their beloved unborn child has a fatal disease, or is killing them, and that this beautiful dream just wasn't meant to be. Maybe that's why they say that if cows and pigs can carry dead fetuses to term, women should have to as well.

    Gentlemen, life is a mystery, and a miracle, and if you cared about actual, breathing, cooing babies as much as you care about clumps of undifferentiated cells you would be out there handing out free birth control on the streets and funding medical clinics to make sure all babies are born healthy and wanted.
     You would not be braging about how eager you are to put already abused women in chains fashioned of your morality.

     So go ahead. Preen your feathers and crow like the rooster on the top of the hen house. Say you are proud. But you are not pro-life.  You are subjugators, overseers, the keepers of chains. And that's nothing to be proud of.

   I refuse to be That Person.

    I refuse to be the guy who is always on Red Alert, who spends my entire life watching my back, who cannot pass a simple day at the beach without seeing a terrorist behind every tree and regarding every cloud in the sky as a possible tornado.
    I refuse to be the person who always carries a gun.
    I refuse to take along a loaded weapon and a kevlar vest on a trip to the grocery store  just in case someone who calls himself the Jolly Green Giant-Killer decides to shoot up the produce section because he hates vegetarians. I will not live on mental lock-down, constantly on alert for riots in the street.

   If only some sensible person had thought to bring a weapon that night….

   I refuse to be the 'sensible' kind who prepares for a fun night out with friends by saying "Hang on- I"d better grab my Glock, with armor-piercing rounds, just in case someone decides to  shoot up the midnight movie tonight! It has never happened before… but it might!"
   It might. And last week, it did. And a tree once fell on a girl in my hometown who was simply walking across campus, and it killed her! But I refuse to arm myself with a chain saw and walk only in parking lots from now on just in case. I refuse to turn my own heart into an armed camp, locking out joy, and trust.

    If only someone else had brought a weapon, so much tragedy could have been avoided.

    Cry cry, the beloved, foolish, country!  So many of you are too trusting, will not bend your knee and tithe to the Second Amendment, and look where it has brought you!
    You walk down the street just talking with friends and enjoying yourself, completely unprepared for mass carnage! You go to art galleries, to clubs and take the kids to the zoo without a loaded gun, when at any moment an anti-tiger zealot could start shooting!
    With such a negligent attitude, it's no wonder a dozen people are dead. It is really your duty as a citizen to buy and carry a weapon at all times. The only way to stop the killing is to be prepared to kill on a moment's notice.
     It takes a madman to  stop a madman.

     I refuse to join the madness.

    When are you going to recognize that it is the American way to avoid paying taxes on money that you got by raiding your neighbor's pension fund, but it is quite unpatriotic not to carry a gun to church, to school, to your local bar!
     Ah yes. Because when people– people who are twisted enough to stockpile ammunition for weeks and booby trap their own apartment before heading off to gun down a theater full of innocents… if those people knew that someone in that theater might also have a gun… in their lap, ready to fire… well, that would keep them from shooting, right? Surely  the sensible, rational brains which potential mass murders have would stay their own hands if they realized the good citizens sitting through a screening of Bambi would be packing heat!
    Yes, just as the extremely low murder rate in this country proves what a fantastic deterrent the death penalty is, too! Keep up the good work, citizen!

     And the answer can't possibly be to try harder to keep guns away from violence-prone mentally ill people, because Freeeedom!!
     And God knows, we cannot restrict the freedoms of our citizens!
     Well, except restricting birth control, I mean, sure. And voting… and access to marijuana-  oh, we can't have people getting their hands on that! That shit is damaging to society!
     And food stamps- can't be giving them out without drug tests. And we ought to restrict people who are gathering in public places like sidewalks and parks and saying things that we don't like.  Cause it's not like the right to peaceable assembly is in the Constitution or anything.
     But if even one person might be deprived of their right to unlimited guns by  banning assault weapons and massive purchases of ammunition… well, that's too high a price to pay. It's anti-democracy. It makes the American eagle cry, just thinking about it.
     There are no gray areas among the NRA crowd, either. The only possible choices before us are unrestricted access to any weaponry you want- OR taking away all guns forever. Which is why the proper response to any proposal at all, even trigger locks or safe storage laws will be "You stupid cowardly fairy liberals are trying to take away all our guns!"
    In America, the only sane response to all this gun violence is more guns. You owe it to your family, your community, and the guy in the produce section to carry a gun at all times. Just in case. Because horrible, terrible things  could happen! And you have to be prepared!

     Well I refuse to be that person. I refuse to face each day worried that a lunatic is going to leap out from behind a mannequin at Macy's at any second and gun me down. I lock my doors and don't walk alone at night, but I will not approach a simple trip to the library as if I may have to storm the beach at Normandy. I won't live llike that.

     Yes- I suppose something awful might happen. But that… that's not living.

To 'comedian' Daniel Tosh and all the other twits and tweets defending him-

     I guess it depends on your definition of funny.

     First of all- Rape is not "getting some". Rape is not sex.
Rape is violence. It is abuse, pain, humiliation and subjugation. It is torture and  anguish. It's not fucking- it's "fuck you".
     Saying that a woman who is angry and offended by something you said  only feels that way because she needs sex– that's ignorant and creepy enough on its own.
    Saying that getting raped would satisfy her sexual needs and make her less cranky is–  well, spoken like a would-be rapist, I kinda think. Like a guy who perhaps just hasn't got the balls to go through with his secret fantasy of getting revenge for all the women who wouldn't sleep with him (women he probably labeled "dykes" because homosexuality is clearly the only reason a gal wouldn't swoon for a total package like that.)
     Rape isn't sex, and if you think it is, the cops need to have a little chat with you, you sick fuck.

    And I'm tired of all the oh-so superior defenders of the comments that started this, when Daniel Tosh said that rape jokes are inherently funny and that it would be really funny if the woman who thinks rape isn't funny was suddenly raped by 5 guys, right there,  in front of the audience. Ha ha ha.
     I'm tired of being told that I don't have a sense of humor, and that he was just being "edgy" and clearly I am one of those militant, stick-in-the-mud feminists who needs to lighten up, quit being so close-minded and realize that true arteests need to push boundaries.
Oh for Christ's sake, woman- he was just joking!
    Except he wasn't. That's my point. See, to be making a joke, there has to be something funny. Mere verbal abuse and sick revenge fantasies of unspeakable violence as payback for being heckled during yourprecious  comedy routine- nothing funny there. Unimaginative, childish and mean. Not funny. So not really a joke.

    There's nothing wrong with pushing back when a heckler challenges you. But if what you push back with isn't funny, you just made the heckler's point for them. If Statler and Waldorf shout "Hey, that joke wasn't funny last year!" it is not clever for you to say "Hey, how cool would it be if I hit your kid with a brick until his skull cracked open? How great would that be!"
    I'm not advocating censorship. Sure, you can say it. But it's just not funny.

    As to Tosh's original premise- that rape jokes are funny and so are always ok… again, it depends. Some subjects are- not taboo, but are very very thin ice. If you skate there, and the audience doesn't enjoy the ride- don't blame them.
     To me, it's like this: if you are in a wheelchair, you can make cripple jokes. They may or may not be good cripple jokes, but I think you can legitimately go there, if you want to. Ralphie May can make fat jokes. If you are fighting AIDS yourself, you can make HIV jokes. Your audience knows that you understand the dark pain that lives there, and can respect your need to find humor inside that pain. So go for it, if that's where your head is. Again, the jokes you make may or may not be funny on their own merit, but you are allowed to laugh at your own suffering. And so we can enjoy laughing with you. And perhaps you will teach us something and break down some walls, yada yada yada sunshine and rainbows. Whatever.

    Daniel Tosh joking about how hi-larious rape jokes are is like a southern white guy with a confederate flag on his truck defending lynching jokes. And I don't care what great comedian did what great routine in nineteen-when-the-hell-ever and it's a classic now and I need to uncross my legs and laugh a little. Stop being so condescending and think for a second about what you are defending, for God's sake.
    Some things just shouldn't be amusing. Laughing at someone else's suffering is not funny, and the people who join in the giggles are the same kind of people who laugh when the school bully trips the Down's Syndrome kid in the hall and calls him "dummy". Hi-larious…. not.
     Not imaginative. Not clever, not artistic, or edgy, or pushing the boundaries, or breaking down walls or any of the other bullshit excuses I've heard. And certainly NOT funny.

     Just mean.