Personhood USA Denounces "Paternalistic Government", Wants Everyone to Convert to Christianity

[NMMNG]

Personhood USA decries "Paternalistic Government" while encouraging MS voters to support its Personhood Bill and calling for everyone to convert to Christianity.

The director of Personhood USA writes in USA Today this morning that Mississippi voters should back his group’s far-reaching “personhood” law in order to put the brakes on big government and decries the fact that “the American people are being treated paternalistically by a government, media and public sector elite that stands in direct opposition to our traditional American values.” That’s right, the personhood law which would criminalize abortion, common forms of birth control, stem-cell research, in-vitro fertilization and the treatment of ectopic pregnancies, says Gualberto Garcia Jones, is actually a way to curtail the size of government because it seeks to overturn Roe v. Wade:

Increasingly, the American people are being treated paternalistically by a government, media and public sector elite that stands in direct opposition to our traditional American values. Using the courts as its instrument, this American elite has emasculated a once independent America.
<snip>
No greater example exists of this abuse of raw judicial power than Roe v. Wade, a decision by seven unelected men to impose abortion on all 50 states.

<snip>
Les Riley, the extremist head of Personhood Mississippi, told OneNewsNow today that he hoped Mississippi’s personhood referendum, Initiative 26, would help lead people to convert to Christianity. Riley was previously a blogger for the Christian secessionist group Christian Exodus and is the Chairman of the far-right Mississippi Constitution Party, which seeks to “restore” government to its “Biblical presuppositions.” In the interview with OneNewsNow, the media arm of the American Family Association which backs Initiative 26, Riley said supporters should “pray not only for victory in the election, but that many people who are outside of Christ would be brought to him by our efforts -- even those opposing the amendment”:
<snip>

It all makes sense if you twist your brain into a pretzel and live in opposite-land. :crazy:

[Ship of Fools]

1. "... decries Paternalistic Government ..." Whoaa! Pot meet kettle ...

[aquart]

2. I know!

And they don't notice a single contradiction or hypocrisy.

[NMMNG]

3. That's where the pretzel brain comes in handy

It helps them believe allowing women to choose how they handle their own reproductive care is a sign of "paternalistic government", but the government allowing only one option (get pregnant and stay pregnant, even if it kills you) isn't.

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Quite fucking literally over by dead body

Fuck these Nazis.

[David in Canada]

5. Terrifying...

These people are absolutely terrifying. They are no better than the Taliban that we are (at the least, ostensibly) in Afghanistan. They are theocrats that will not rest until every bit of progress since the Enlightenment has been extinguished.

This proposal is nothing more than an attempt to force women back into submission by totally stripping control of their fertility. They, and their corporate backers would absolutely love a huge population increase. They have delusions over a clash of civilisations, a Third World War that will usher back their supposed saviour. Their corporate masters, on the other hand, are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of the cheap labour that a large population with a sizable segment of unwanted children would provide. In essence, it would be a return to feudalism. Of course, aspects of feudalism have existed before in the American south, the Jim Crow system and sharecropping being prominent examples.

These people are every bit a threat to our civilisation that the Nazis were and perhaps a far greater threat than Al Qa'eda and the Taliban could ever be. Like the Nazis, their benighted ignorance and hatred must be fought at full force and at every turn. I, for one, would rather die than live in the hellish nightmare that they envision.

If you live (and are registered to vote) in Mississippi, make sure to vote and invite like minded individuals a ride to the polls with you. If you know anyone in Mississippi and anywhere near Progressive, make sure to call them tonight and remind them what is at stake. This is a test case. If it fails in Mississippi, this horrible idea will recede, it only temporarily. If successful, it will provide a beachhead for the theocrats to grow and spread their malignancy throughout the United States full stop.

[NMMNG]

6. They're the Christian Taliban

They have pretty much the same intent, just some slightly different ways of achieving their goals.

[Thats my opinion]

7. So many of us are embarrassed

that groups like this fly under the cover of the word "Christian." I suppose we are driven to affirm the No True Scotsman position.

To deny a women right to her own own body because in Mississippi they have come up with a religiously suspect definition of a human being is appalling. The Bible is silent about the subject, except for one passage in the book of Numbers that describes how to produce an abortion--a ghastly procedure legislated by a priest. (Numbers 5:11-31)

[NMMNG]

8. People interpret and apply the Bible as they choose

Which is one of the biggest problems with Christianity (or any other religion, particularly when people are trying to use it against others). The people behind this apparently are trying to get the legislature to define a cell cluster as a person so they can then apply the Biblical "do not kill" (or "do not murder"). Of course Mississippi also applies that "eye for an eye" rule via the Death Penalty but I guess that's because certain convicted criminals aren't considered people...

[Thats my opinion]

12. You are so right.

And it's is terrible perversion of the Holy.

Jesus went far beyond the eye for an eye. "If you enemy is hungry, feed him."

[cleanhippie]

17. So how do we (liberal believers and non-believers) fight the extraordinary influence they have?

:shrug:

[ellenfl]

9. 'let us be your daddy instead.' eom

[NMMNG]

10. Because wimmenfolk are too stupid to make decisions about their wombs

Such weighty decisions take men, who will never get pregnant or be faced with the inherent risks involved.

[MadMaddie]

11. Knowing that American Christian Terrorist are not even

in the Terrorism database should give everyone a chill....

These people are a threat to the country and the Constitution.

[NMMNG]

13. They're determined to take us back to the time

when women were slaves to their wombs and had no higher aspiration than to be a mommy and a wife (since that's God's Plan for women). They want us to spend our lives spawning for Jesus, changing diapers, wiping snot, cleaning house and being maids for men.

[MadMaddie]

19. The Handmaids Tale comes to mind

they are dangerous....we need to take their threats seriously.

[NMMNG]

20. Same here

Though Gilead seems almost mild compared to what some of these people have in mind.

[Sau Lan]

14. pretty ironic

Considering that a Christian regime would be anything but free.

[edhopper]

15. I think this will pass

then a long court battle. But i am not confident that Scotus will eventually rule against it.

[MarkCharles]

16. Polls prior to today are running even 44-45 % for and against +/- 3%

Rachel Maddow reviewed this last night, in context with similar polls and votes taken in Colorado in previous years.

The polls in those two previous election questions in Colorado were running AGAINST the measure, (pro-status quo pro choice), and the votes were SIGNIFICANTLY MORE against the measure in the final vote count. In other words, people who were polled often said they were in favor of the question, but when they actually were voting on secret ballots, they actually voted against.

[silverweb]

18. Paternalism is objectionable

... only when someone other than himself is the "pater."

:crazy:

[LAGC]

21. Well, the verdict is in in Mississippi.

And these folks got spanked.

[NMMNG]

22. Thankfully

At least for now women can still control their own bodies.

[beam me up scottie]

23. Well sort of.

Have a friend who needed a late term abortion, they had to leave their kids with relatives (and lie about why) because her husband had to drive across three states to have the ABSOLUTELY LEGAL AND MEDICALLY NECESSARY procedure performed. They felt like criminals.


There are no Planned Parenthood or women's clinics in this area and I had to move heaven and earth to find a pharmacy that actually carries the morning after pill.

[NMMNG]

24. That's true

The moralizing control freaks have been chipping away at women's rights inch by inch. They haven't managed to overturn Roe v. Wade but they've effectively made abortion unavailable in some areas of the country (particularly for poor women).

[beam me up scottie]

25. Inch by inch, exactly!

And whenever election time rolls around we're told to STFU and sit down because Roe V Wade will never be overturned.

When the states are finally able to criminalize abortion we're all fucked.

[NMMNG]

26. It's the same with LGBT people and atheists

"STFU about your petty little pet issues. The rest of us are concerned about More Important Matters." Somehow we're the bad guys because we're fighting to save our rights and our lives.

[beam me up scottie]

27. oy, one year minus one day to election and counting...

Ready for this again?

I will require medication.

Lots and lots of medication.

[NMMNG]

28. Ready as I'll ever be

It's good we have people to remind us how low we rank in the scheme of things.

[beam me up scottie]

29. Yes. It is.

Always remember if we win, it's in spite of us, if we lose, it's because of us.

[onager]

30. Think I found the...birth of this insanity.

From a column by the anti-abortion kook Judie Brown, written back in 2007:

My view of this ongoing struggle between political experts and those of us who understand the tragic price being paid by dead babies is that it is time to develop a different pro-life strategy — one that places the personhood of the child at the front of the struggle and builds toward that goal by taking solid steps that do not appear to approve the very act we know is murder. Avoiding personhood by suggesting that the time is not right or the number of justices on the Supreme Court is not yet sufficient is to repeat the arguments of the past 34 years.

Linked to the article on Free Republic, so you can enjoy their comments. A few apparently sane Freepers weighed in:

If you work really hard along these lines, you can probably get your popular support below 30% and make any Republican unelectable for 50 years. Great work.

That would almost make me believe in a god, and I'm a Fundamentalist Atheist.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1930129/posts

On the drive home tonight, I tuned into the local Fundie radio station here in Los Angeles (the Salem Communications outlet). I figured they would be outraged by the Mississippi vote and whining up a storm.

I was not disappointed.

On the idiotically named show "Intersection of Faith & Reason," some Christer was attempting to define personhood "logically." He went from Aristotle and other major philosophers like Billy Graham to, suddenly, Werner Heisenberg's wave/particle theories.

The point? I don't think he had one, other than throwing out a lot of pseudo-erudite gibberish to avoid his real message: "We desperately need to control women's bodies and you won't let us, W-A-A-H!"

[NMMNG]

32. Oh barf

I had to give up on that Freak Republic thread after all the maudlin baby pictures started. If they were little black babies born to unemployed women ("welfare queens") they wouldn't give a shit in a jar about them. Little white babies though, break out the tissues and the violins. :nopity:


If you work really hard along these lines, you can probably get your popular support below 30% and make any Republican unelectable for 50 years. Great work.

Much like the Mississippi Catholics who were against the bill, they're not in the least concerned about the rights of women. They're just worried it will torpedo their political agenda.

[AsahinaKimi]

31. They can convert me over

My dead body. But giving the warning that, I come from Samurai ancestry.

[NMMNG]

33. If they come back with this crap again

I want you on our team. :evilgrin: