Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

“woke” is the new caravan.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

“Squeaker” McCarthy

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Second rate reporter says what?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Nothing worth doing is easy.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Infrastructure week. at last.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / Kiss My Black Ass / Rick Santorum Amazed that Black People are Pro-Choice

Rick Santorum Amazed that Black People are Pro-Choice

by | 174 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Ricky? Lose That Number.1

Why is Rick Santorum breathing air that could best be used by someone with a brain?

In eyebrow raising comments, possible presidential hopeful Rick Santorum is questioning how President Barack Obama — as an African-American — can support abortion rights.

Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania who is seriously considering a run for his party’s 2012 presidential nomination, argued in an interview that a fetus is a person and said he considers it “almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”

Discussing Obama’s views on abortion during a two-hour sit-down with CNS News on Thursday, Santorum said the president’s pro-choice position meant he was valuing some lives over others.

“The question is, and this is what Barack Obama didn’t want to answer — is that human life a person under the Constitution?” he said.

“And Barack Obama says no. Well, if that human life is not a person, then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”

Who are we to decide who are or are not people? We’re barely people ourselves!

I mean… WHAT!?

1 I don’t know what this means. Just go with it.

[via Politico]

Reader Interactions

174Comments

  1. 1.

    Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)

    I’m sure he was trying to make a 3/5ths Compromise or slavery reference, which is still ignorant but not as awful.

    Please don’t make me ever have to defend Santorum again.

  4. 4.

    Ija

    Money quote:

    Indeed, an unborn child is even more helpless than a slave. They have no chance to escape should their mother decide to have an abortion. They have no faculty, no choice in the matter. Is it such a stretch to liken the plight of millions of the yet-to-be-born to the past plight of slaves?

    Edit: This is from ED, not Santorum. Just to be clear.

  7. 7.

    Chris Grrr

    Wow. The colorful adjective just adds so much precision to his remark.

    Santorum for GOP nominee. Just let him keep making courageous statements such as this. Oh please oh please…

  8. 8.

    WereBear

    1 I don’t know what this means. Just go with it.

    My likey.

    He can use it when he feels better.

    Which may never happen; heduptheazz is usually chronic, and sometimes fatal.

  10. 10.

    Dave

    So….Santorum can’t believe Obama has the audacity “to decide who are people and who are not people.” At which point Santorum then…decides who are people and who are not people.

    One hell of a braintrust there, GOP.

  12. 12.

    Chris

    @Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):

    I’m sure he was trying to make a 3/5ths Compromise or slavery reference, which is still ignorant but not as awful.

    This. He’s saying that black people were once unpersons so they should have sympathy for fetuses.

  18. 18.

    Quaker in a Basement

    Mr. Santorum wants to decide who is an adult and who is not. Everyone with a vagina is excused.

  19. 19.

    J sub D

    I sooooo want to see a Santorum/Huckabee debate on morality in 2012. Pat Robertson could moderate it.

  20. 20.

    PS

    Corporations are people too, with rights to speech and everything and should therefore be tickled on their tummies.

  21. 21.

    lamh32

    Here is where context matters.

    Would Santorium have said this about liberals in general?

    What is it about Obama that makes Santorium think this is an appropriate comparison to make?

    But hey, he meant this in a “historical” context, nothing to do with race. I’m sure this analogy would work just as well with Hilary or some other white liberal.

    Seriously, I know the spectre of being called a “racist” so scares some white people, that they would even defend the defensible, but come on people, to say that Santorum is trying to use historical context is asisine.

  22. 22.

    quaint irene

    “Presidential hopeful?’ Hoped by whom?

    In that photo, Santorum looks like Jerry Seinfeld, in the episode where he gets that really bad haircut.

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    I keep tripping over “almost remarkable.” What does that mean? That you will almost remark on it? But you (Santorum) did — so it’s remarkable, not almost remarkable.

  26. 26.

    MonkeyBoy

    I’m in favor of forced labor(1) of fetuses. Nothing in the Constitution prohibits it and if there any laws or regulations regarding this labor then it should be up to the states.

    [1. States should also have a say, if anybody does, as to whether women have any rights about whether they undergo induced labor.]

  27. 27.

    Jim C.

    The biggest assholes of the 2000s are making a comeback. How long until we see Cheney, Rummy, Bush etc. making the rounds on the shows?

  28. 28.

    scav

    Just wait til you taste Santorum’s recipe for Fried Chicken:
    Ingredients:
    1 doz eggs.
    1 pkg panko.
    . . .

  29. 29.

    Dennis SGMM

    Although it’s possible to question Santorum’s right, as a white man, to tell black people how to feel about an important issue I can assure you that he watched several seasons of “Good Times” back in the day. His comments are just “Dynomite!”

  31. 31.

    MagicPanda

    This is not just some crazy thing that Santorum came up with.

    Within the pro-life movement, it is common to compare the struggle to end abortion with the struggle to free slaves. That is where the Dred Scott dog whistle comes from. You see, Republicans are the good guys who advocate for the rights of those who don’t have any rights, such as slaves and fetuses.

    Just google “slavery abortion” or “slavery pro-life”

    Here is a good overview article

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1141/is_5_45/ai_n31187240/

    Santorum is so deep within that bubble that he doesn’t realize that most people have never heard this comparison. For him, this is his cultural reality.

  33. 33.

    Upper West

    It’s the Dred Scott dog whistle, without mentioning the case. Scott determined that slaves were not “people” and it’s become a rallying cry for the pro -lifers. Bush even mentioned it in a 2004 debate (when asked whom he would appoint to the Supreme Court, he answered that he would not appoint anyone who would condone the Dred Scott decision).

    so Santorum is whistling, just not with the Dred Scott dog this time.

  35. 35.

    Allan

    Dear Rick Santorum,

    The world’s biggest abortionist is God. Seriously. Do you even know how many fertilized eggs never make to the finish line?

    So why don’t you and your pals go assassinate God and leave the rest of us the fuck alone?

  36. 36.

    Roger Moore

    @Jim C.:

    How long until we see Cheney, Rummy, Bush etc. making the rounds on the shows?

    When did Cheney stop making the rounds of the shows? AFAIK, the only thing that’s kept him from doing so is his bad health, not a lack of desire or opportunity to spread his hate on the airwaves.

  37. 37.

    SenyorDave

    I know Dan Savage led the movement to define “Santorum” as some type of aftermath of a certain sexual act. I think Dan should rethink his efforts, because it seems like it would be insulting to have anything to be referred to as “Santorum”.

    I do agree with the creathing air remark – its hard to imagine a living organism less desrving of air than Santorum.

  38. 38.

    Xboxershorts

    Forgive me if I am wrong, but I seem to remember reading somewhere that the market for abortion was predominately white, middle class and above.

    Wouldn’t Mr Santorum be better served to ask, instead, why his base constituency seems to hate children?

  39. 39.

    nisl

    Being pro choice is a matter of individual freedom. I’d bet nobody values freedom more than the descendants of slaves.

  40. 40.

    Paul in KY

    The world would be slightly better if Satanum’s mom had aborted him (or offed him sometime post-birth).

  41. 41.

    geg6

    @lamh32:

    Since I have looooooooooooong experience with Man On Dog, I can tell you that he’d make the 3/5 or slavery argument no matter what the race of the person was. He’s been making that argument for at least 10-15 years now.

    Much like E.D. Kain does.

    What neither of these two dimwits ever stop to think about is that the slavery they are advocating for (and not against, as they seem to think they are so cleverly doing) is that of women. They want women to be slaves to their, and only their, crime syndicate church and to the zygote/parasite in the womb.

  43. 43.

    MagicPanda

    @Upper West: And just to be clear, I believe that the Dred Scott dog whistle follows FROM the analogy between fetuses and slaves, not the other way around.

    Inside the pro-life movement bubble, the Dred Scott decision is parallel to Roe v. Wade because fetuses are like slaves.

    I know it doesn’t make sense on lots of levels.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @slag:

    Because a fully grown black person and a fetus are exactly the same thing. Not awful at all.

    To be fair, the forced birthers have been arguing for years that women are unpersons whose only function is to carry fetuses for rich people to adopt, so it’s not like it’s only black people that they think of as less than human.

  48. 48.

    geg6

    @MagicPanda:

    Santorum is so deep within that bubble that he doesn’t realize that most people have never heard this comparison. For him, this is his cultural reality.

    This asshole is so deep into it that he forced his wife and children to hug, kiss, and keep overnight in the home the baby they had that was a stillbirth. They have such reverence for life and the welfare of children, doncha know.

  49. 49.

    LGRooney

    Yes, the actual statement on its own is much less offensive to me than seemingly many others because it was so clearly a reference to the 3/5 clause.

    What is remarkable for me are the implications: a) begging the question that everyone accepts that fetuses (feti?) are fully-cognizant humans with the same rights as anyone actually out of the womb; and, b) that there seems to be no room for argument that all blacks, by virtue of being black, must still carry a chip on their shoulder about this historical atrocity.

    Sorry, Ricky, most of the blacks in my circles carry chips about much more current issues like the racist dog whistles that serve as part of the foundation of contemporary conservative politics, the fact that their communities have been – as usual – much more adversely affected by the economic crisis than others, and that law enforcement is still (in many places) extremely biased against them, inter alia.

  50. 50.

    Michael Scott

    . . . [T]he word “person,” as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. [n55] This is in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely presented. McGarvey v. Magee-Womens Hospital, 340 F.Supp. 751 (WD Pa.1972); Byrn v. New York City Health & Hospitals Corp., 31 N.Y.2d 194, 286 N.E.2d 887 (1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-434; Abele v. Markle, 351 F.Supp. 224 (Conn.1972), appeal docketed, No. 72-730. Cf. Cheaney v. State, ___ Ind. at ___, 285 N.E.2d at 270; Montana v. Rogers, 278 F.2d 68, 72 (CA7 1960), aff’d sub nom. Montana v. Kennedy, 366 U.S. 308 (1961); Keeler v. Superior Court, 2 Cal.3d 619, 470 P.2d 617 (1970); State v. Dickinson, 28 [p159] Ohio St.2d 65, 275 N.E.2d 599 (1971). Indeed, our decision in United States v. Vuitch, 402 U.S. 62 (1971), inferentially is to the same effect, for we there would not have indulged in statutory interpretation favorable to abortion in specified circumstances if the necessary consequence was the termination of life entitled to Fourteenth Amendment protection.

    Roe v. Wade (1973) 410 U.S. 113, 158.

    http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0410_0113_ZO.html

    The law of the land for 38 years and counting.

    Why do wingnuts hate America?

  51. 51.

    Allan

    Cool. We’ve inspired Google Ads to offer us Pro-Life checks we can use to remind the nice people processing our payments at the utility company that abortion is murder.

  53. 53.

    suzanne

    @Chris:

    He’s saying that black people were once unpersons so they should have sympathy for fetuses.

    I like how Santorum never considers that black people were once fetuses, too.

    Maybe he thinks they sprang fully formed from their fathers’ heads.

  54. 54.

    MattF

    We have, in this corner, Folly, in the guise of the ex-Senator from Pennsylvania. And in the opposite corner, we have Ambition, also, weirdly enough, in the guise of the ex-Senator. At the sound of the bell, they will fight it out.

  55. 55.

    Tonybrown74

    Good Lord (and I’m atheist)!

    Did someone spike the punch!?!?

    Or does MLK Day just drive [some] people crazy?

  56. 56.

    Parallel 5ths (Jewish Steel)

    @freelancer: 3-5 Steely Dan songs are good. Two of those songs are really good. The rest of it sucks.

  57. 57.

    Southern Beale

    “… then I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’”

    I saw this on the Twitter-Tubes yesterday. I could not sum up my contempt in less than 140 characters so I let it lie. This is just a classic case of conservatives not getting what “choice” means. They never, ever do.

    Santorum is too dumb to even get the hypocrisy of his own statement. The liberal, pro-choice position is NOT to decide who are and are not people as a government — it’s, “let each individual woman decide for herself what is best within certain parameters” (for example, first trimester unless there is an extenuating medical circumstance). So if you are a woman and you believe every sperm is sacred and human life begins at conception, NO ONE WILL FORCE YOU TO HAVE AN ABORTION. That is why it’s called CHOICE.

    If you are a woman who does not wish to carry your fetus to term for whatever reason — it’s not any of our business, really — and you are OK in your conscience about it because you don’t believe a fetus is a human life at this point, then this option is open to you.

    That. Is. Why. It’s. CHOICE.

    It is Republicans like Rick Santorum who are saying that women are not “people” as deserving of protection as an unborn fetus. They are the ones who want women who may not be able to physically to go full term and give birth.

    And let me say something about the sadistic abortion doctor in the news who killed infants with scissors: he was performing ILLEGAL ABORTIONS, people. This is what happens when you restrict access to abortion: you force women to seek out monsters like this guy who perform monstrous acts. We will never know how many of these women might have been able to seek out a safe, legal, first trimester abortion had they not been told they were baby killers and forced into a desperate situation.

  59. 59.

    Allan

    @Michael Scott: What’s amazing to me is the rank hypocrisy about “activist judges” when they disagree with an SC decision, and how fervently they defend the most outrageous rulings if they comport to their world-view.

    There was Cheney on my TeeVee, talking about how the individual right to own guns was settled law, in a tone of voice that implied the Heller decision came down centuries ago, instead of 2008.

  60. 60.

    Three-nineteen

    @SenyorDave: If you ask Dan Savage, you find out that santorum is bad. You don’t want santorum. If you are doing it right, there is no santorum.

  61. 61.

    Dan

    Wonder if Rick thinks you should be able to prosecute a pregnant woman who drinks a few beers for assault on her unborn baby. At what point will wingnuts like santorum come to realize that the women carrying these fetuses are living, breathing, thinking human beings?

  63. 63.

    MagicPanda

    @geg6: Since we’re having a national conversation about mental health in the wake of the Tuscon shooting…

    When a grown man brings a dead baby home to kiss and sleep with, shouldn’t that person be under psychological evaluation instead of running for president?

    *shudder*

  64. 64.

    Ija

    Wanna bet that William Saletan, abortion concern troll extraordinaire will defend Santorum soon? It’s a toss-up between him and Douthat on who would write the article sooner. My money is on Saletan, he is not restricted by NYT publication schedule. Douthat has to wait for his turn.
    Or maybe ED Kain will deign to visit us soon and defend his abortion = slavery article. Oh ED, I was starting to not mind you, and them I remembered this atrocity.

  65. 65.

    morzer

    Are we sure that Prick Skankorum is actually an air-breather? He looks like an android precursor of the Romneytron, but without the added panderware.

  66. 66.

    Sasha

    I believe it’s an attempt to create a wedge issue among blacks, designed to lower or peel off their traditional Democratic support, by equating slavery with abortion. It goes hand in glove with the meme that abortion is actually black genocide.

    It’s akin to recent attempts to turn blacks against Democrats by feeding into cultural homophobia.

  67. 67.

    Tonybrown74

    @scav:

    Just wait til you taste Santorum’s recipe for Fried Chicken:
    Ingredients:
    1 doz eggs.
    1 pkg panko.
    . . .

    Oh … that was just terrible!

    I may have peed a little laughing at that!

  68. 68.

    geg6

    @Southern Beale:

    And let me say something about the sadistic abortion doctor in the news who killed infants with scissors: he was performing ILLEGAL ABORTIONS, people. This is what happens when you restrict access to abortion: you force women to seek out monsters like this guy who perform monstrous acts. We will never know how many of these women might have been able to seek out a safe, legal, first trimester abortion had they not been told they were baby killers and forced into a desperate situation.

    THIS. A thousand times.

    And as a resident of the commonwealth of PA, can I just say how next to impossible it is to get a legal abortion?

    From the Guttmacher Institute’s site regarding abortion access in PA:

    • In 2008, there were 50 abortion providers in Pennsylvania. This represents a 11% decline from 2005, when there were 56 abortion providers

    • In 2008, 82% of Pennsylvania counties had no abortion provider. 46% of Pennsylvania women lived in these counties

    http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/sfaa/pennsylvania.html

  70. 70.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    Paging EDKain. Time for a frontpager about how ABL is wrong, and how these issues would go away if we were just all *real* libertarians working at think tanks.

  71. 71.

    Janet Strange

    This is what I’d like to ask every person in America:

    Republicans like Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum want the government to force every woman who becomes pregnant by rape to bear her rapist’s child.

    They also want the government to force every woman who discovers that the fetus she carries has a severe defect, to give birth to that child. Unless of course, the defect is so severe that it will not survive until term. In which case, they want the government to force the pregnant woman to carry that fetus until it dies inside her, at which point she would be allowed to have it removed.

    And they want the government to force every sexually abused little girl who becomes pregnant by incest, to bear her abuser’s child.

    OK, America, do you agree or disagree with Palin and Santorum?

  73. 73.

    kyle

    Angry Black Lady, please do some thinking before you type. Anyone who knows about the right-to-life movement would know that Santorum was referring to the way blacks were legally/constitutionally ruled to be nonpeople earlier in American history.

    You contribute nothing if you spew.

  74. 74.

    Michael

    @MacsenMifune:

    Is he choking in that picture?

    Being fisted. The first part is probably the most difficult; after the initial pressure, it gets fun for him.

  75. 75.

    cleek

    i’m simply amazed at how many lefties seem unable to understand what Santorum’s talking about.

    they apparently knee-jerked so hard when they heard that Santorum referred to “black people”, that they knocked themselves senseless.

  76. 76.

    sukabi

    @Allan: not to mention all the massacred spermatozoan americans that are left to wither and die in old socks, tissues and condoms. Who will speak for those lost souls?

  77. 77.

    Ija

    @Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:

    You’re wrong there. When it comes to this issue, he believes we are all religious Christians. As he said in that slavery = abortion article:

    Recall, the ranks of abolitionists were filled with the religious – sometimes the fanatically religious. On religious and particularly on Christian grounds they opposed the institution of slavery. Now on those same grounds they oppose abortion. The arguments are the same. Why is this such a troubling comparison? Even if you are a supporter of abortion, why is this such a troubling comparison?

  80. 80.

    Nina

    President Obama, an African-American man, doesn’t have a uterus either, but is still able to support abortion rights. Imagine that.

  81. 81.

    Ija

    Oh crap, I am turning into matoko_chan with my obsession with ED. But that really is a vile article. He needs to explain himself.

  82. 82.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    @cleek: No, most people here know exactly what he means, but it’s so a moronic reductio ad absurdum.

    “Black people once weren’t legally people, so they must be pro-life.”

  83. 83.

    Shinobi

    I really wonder how democrats are going to fair with this new voting bloc? Embryos are notoriously fickle.

  86. 86.

    BR

    @Ija:

    That was really EDK comparing fetuses to slaves? I used to think the guy was just boring and wrong in predictable ways. I didn’t know he had the ability to make offensive comparisons as well.

  88. 88.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac:The thing is the opposite logic works at least as well. “Black people once weren’t legally people and could be controlled and forced to give birth at the whims of another, so they, more than anyone else, should appreciate the freedom to control their own bodies.”

  89. 89.

    shortstop

    @MagicPanda: Unbelievable that so many people are not getting this. The abortion = slavery line has been going strong for years on the right, and has been widely discussed and properly ridiculed on the left. Anti-choicers deliver it with a “What say you to THAT, liberals? GOTCHA!” smirk every fucking time and think they’re scoring hugely.

  90. 90.

    Mike in NC

    Santorum, a former Republican senator from Pennsylvania who is seriously considering a run for his party’s 2012 presidential nomination

    Santorum may be “serious” about it, but hardly anybody else is. Crawl back under your rock, Rick.

  91. 91.

    Loneoak

    Indeed, what could be more apt than comparing an adult black person to a helpless lump of cells without agency?

  93. 93.

    Sputnik

    I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’

    And I find it almost remarkable for a rich white man to say ‘now we are going to decide what black people can and cannot do with their lives and bodies.’

    The ignorance, it hurts.

  95. 95.

    Ija

    @BR:

    It’s his name on the article. Unless there is another ED Kain blogging. That article is pretty recent too, July 29, 2010. Has he graced us with his presence here yet at that time?

  96. 96.

    Loneoak

    @kyle:

    Think one step deeper, buddy. Many things are ruled non-people, but it is neither accurate nor politic to compare all of them with a broad brush. ABL is angry about this, correctly IMO, because it is awful to compare the enslavement of full adult humans with the private medical decisions of adult women. Santorum is dumb as shit for making that comparison and ONLY does it because he has such a backwards and crude understanding of the inhumanity of slavery and its descendants.

  97. 97.

    jibeaux

    Well, I personally think the uninsured are people. This makes me not a Republican.
    I also tend toward the belief that Tunch is probably closer to being a people than is Rick Santorum.

  99. 99.

    slag

    @Omnes Omnibus: Exactly this. But the reality is that everyone should be able to appreciate this freedom. Race, gender, what-have-you. Doing so only requires a thing called empathy. And when you can better empathize with a fetus than you can with a fully grown person of another race or gender, you have serious problems. Serious problems.

  101. 101.

    matoko_chan

    @Ija: he didnt. that was right before he showed up here, i ax about it and ever one yelled at me for being rude.
    people like eemom gave him a pass.
    a lot of the greater cudlips defended his position.

  102. 102.

    Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac

    @Ija:
    I remember the article being a big deal when ED was added to this site, so he had already written it. It’s the reason i’ve never taken a word he’s written here seriously.

  103. 103.

    Nina

    @cleek: What is Santorum actually talking about, then? The ‘3/5th clause’ may be implicit to people who know a bit about history, and for people who know a lot about how some anti-choice groups groups frame their arguments, but Santorum is just cynically manipulating the black experience in this country to legitimize his extreme position on choice. Business as usual, nuance or not.

  106. 106.

    MagicPanda

    @shortstop: At first, I thought that what was newsworthy was that Santorum was so far in his bubble that he had trouble understanding that people might disagree with him.

    “Well, everyone knows that slavery is EXACTLY like abortion, right? But then why does Barack Obama think abortion is OK? That’s baffling!!?!”

    But then, seeing the responses on this blog and others, I find it equally fascinating how completely confused people got. It’s like no one had heard the abortion = slavery argument before, and that Santorum was the lone wacko who came up with it.

    It just goes to show you how disconnected we are getting as a society. The conversations on the right and the left are becoming completely untethered from each other.

  107. 107.

    shortstop

    @Loneoak: But kyle wasn’t suggesting it was “accurate or politic” to compare black people with fetuses. He was explaining to ABL and others that Santorum’s inaccurate and impolitic argument isn’t based on black people not being full people. It’s based on Santorum pretending that the attempt to assign full personhood to embryos is identical to the civil rights struggles of African Americans.

    It’s a ridiculously lame argument and Santorum’s a moron, as is everyone on the right who’s been saying this shit for years. And we can fill 100 threads rightly taking apart this argument. But it’s not the argument ABL thinks he was making.

  108. 108.

    geg6

    @Ija:

    Nope, it’s definitely him. My first skirmish with him was at that time. All the people here who are all “oh, ED, he’s okay!” have to own that. This is why I won’t ever give him an inch. Ever. On anything. Anyone who can make this type of argument is an mortal enemy of mine forever and is too stupid to even bother arguing with. And that’s without any of his libertarian claptrap.

    Which reminds me, how the hell can ANY libertarian call themselves that if they are forced birthers?

  109. 109.

    MikeJ

    I’ve seen these strapping young fetuses ordering t-bone steaks.

    Here’s a question for Ricky, taking his statement in the best possible light: does he think black people don’t have a right to decide that blastocysts *are* people? If they lack the moral agency to decide one way, surely they lack moral agency to decide the other.

  110. 110.

    Loneoak

    By the way, in my professional life I’m an academic ethicist. Moral argument by analogy almost never works, and it is often spectacularly bad when one side of the analogy is an atrocity (e.g., chattel slavery or the Holocaust). One suffering is not exchangeable for another, as morality is not commodity trading.

    I’m somewhat interested if other cultures think this way, as it seems to me to be a deeply Christian mode of reasoning: Jesus died for us, so one unit of suffering can be exchanged for another. Just a hunch.

  111. 111.

    BR

    @geg6:

    Which reminds me, how the hell can ANY libertarian call themselves that if they are forced birthers?

    I’ve wondered that too. Because their belief that a fetus is a person comes from their religious views, and as a libertarian they shouldn’t believe that their religious view should be adhered to by others.

  112. 112.

    Ija

    @geg6:

    Which reminds me, how the hell can ANY libertarian call themselves that if they are forced birthers?

    Because the fetus lives inside a woman’s uterus and has property rights? That’s sacrosanct, right? Property rights. I guess women and their uteruses(? is that really the plural?) are just properties.

  113. 113.

    geg6

    @BR:

    And all their screaming about individual rights, too. I mean, I’m no libertarian and I run away as fast as I can if someone I know tells me they are libertarians, so I don’t know how they reconcile this. Or is it just your typical “women are second class citizens and, as such, have no individual rights” sexism because most libertarians are men?

  114. 114.

    debbie

    Considering how little Santorum and his buddies care about children once they’re born, I’d say he’s the one who has a larger hand in who dies and who does not, whose life has value and whose does not. The real blood is on his hands.

  115. 115.

    shortstop

    @BR: Interestingly, the only anti-choice people I’ve ever met whose belief in fetal personhood didn’t come from religious views — at least, they were convincingly portraying bona fide atheists — were self-proclaimed libertarians. I think we could have an absorbing discussion about how these same guys (and yes, they were all guys) viewed women in the aggregate. But that would be another conversation.

  117. 117.

    Mark S.

    is that human life a person under the Constitution?

    No, it isn’t, and none of the Supreme Court justices who have voted to overturn Roe have ever made that argument because it would be fucking absurd. If a woman had a life-threatening pregnancy, performing an abortion to save her life would be murder. Only fanatical idiots (such as the Catholic hierarchy) would go that far.

  121. 121.

    geg6

    @Mark S.:

    Only fanatical idiots (such as the Catholic hierarchy) would go that far.

    Well, to be fair to the Catholic hierarchy, Santorum and EDK would, too.

  123. 123.

    gene108

    Comparing fetuses to slaves is an apt comparison.

    As slaves, African-Americans had it all. Free food, free clothing and not a care in the world. They had their white master, who knew better to take care of them and to push them to work, when their natural instincts told them to sit around and be lazy, because so much was provided for them by their white master for free.

    Fetuses also live the good life. They have none of the problems, we post-fetus life forms have to endure. They have a secure place to stay. They don’t have problems breathing…hell, I don’t think they can even breath. They get fed intravenously and have their bodily wastes removed through the same tube. No worries about having to “hold it in” because your bar crawling and in between bars and can’t find a place to pee. They just let it all go.

    And if you think post-fetal life is so awesome, have you seen a new post-fetus? They are screaming at the top of their lungs, scared out of their freaking minds and are usually so cold, you have to wrap them up in blankets to keep them from freezing.

    Yup, fetus’, like slaves had it good. Who is President Obama to try and draw differences between the two? I’m glad Santorum is shedding some much needed light onto one of the biggest problems people face: post-fetal existence.

    If we all just stayed fetuses, maybe we’d all be a lot better off.

  125. 125.

    morzer

    @Mark S.:

    I am more surprised that 98% of libertarians don’t shamble down the street moaning “Brains… brains… must eat….”.

  126. 126.

    shortstop

    @trollhattan: Building on the popular winger complaint of tyranny by democracy, the underlying new talking point here has got to be “that black guy’s batshit crazy.” Look for it any day now on TVs and blogs near you!

  129. 129.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ija:
    @geg6:

    My guess (with a nod to Amanda Marcotte): they think that their sperm gives them property rights over your uterus (aka “you poke it, you own it”). And now that they own it, they can dictate what health care you choose to get.

  131. 131.

    Ija

    @Mark S.:

    Gee, don’t you know that giving the vote to women has been bad for libertarianism.

    The 1920s were the last decade in American history during which one could be genuinely optimistic about politics. Since 1920, the vast increase in welfare beneficiaries and the extension of the franchise to women — two constituencies that are notoriously tough for libertarians — have rendered the notion of “capitalist democracy” into an oxymoron.

    The guy who founded Paypal must be a genius who knows what he is talking about.

  132. 132.

    ed drone

    @shortstop:

    “that black guy’s batshit crazy.”

    No, no, the celebrated Mr. Steele is gone from his position of ultimate power, and we will no longer be able to point and laugh.

    Ed

  133. 133.

    Svensker

    @geg6:

    This asshole is so deep into it that he forced his wife and children to hug, kiss, and keep overnight in the home the baby they had that was a stillbirth.

    Seriously?

  134. 134.

    cleek

    @Nina:

    but Santorum is just cynically manipulating the black experience in this country to legitimize his extreme position on choice.

    bah.

    people on lefty blogs everywhere use the “3/5” thing as a punchline in their jokes when making fun of Republicans whenever the race issue comes up. nobody ever accuses them of “manipulating the black experience”.

  135. 135.

    Mark S.

    @Ija:

    Oh, I remember that jackass. I fully support his goal of leading societies of Galts to outer space and the ocean floor.

  140. 140.

    eemom

    let us pause a moment to contemplate the fact that Mr. Man On Dog LOST his reelection campaign in 2006……and now he is running for President??

    Didn’t there used to be a time when LOSERS who LOST their last election were sort of automatically dismissed from consideration for the highest office in the land? IIRC that is why Prince George was able to seize the heir-apparentcy from Prince Jeb, the Bushspawn who WASN’T an alcoholic cocaine snorting lifelong fuckup.

  141. 141.

    geg6

    OT, but this appearance on Morning Joe is kinda sorta astounding, even for Lieberman (h/t Benen):

    http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2011_01/027621.php

    . Lieberman insisted the “most official and comprehensive report” proved Saddam Hussein was developing WMD, and that the regime was “beginning really tactically to support the terrorist movements that had attacked us on 9/11 and today.”

    And when Ariann Huffington pushed back on that:

    As part of the same MSNBC segment, Arianna Huffington asked Lieberman to substantiate his claim about Saddam Hussein was working on weapons of mass destruction, a claim even George W. Bush abandoned. The senator replied, “I’m basing it on the so-called Duelfer Report. Charles D-U-E-L-F-E-R conducted the most comprehensive report on behalf of our government.” When Huffington said there’s nothing in the Duelfer Report to bolster Lieberman’s conclusions, the senator replied, “I don’t think you’ve read it, sweetheart.”

    Arianna is, apparently, a better person than I am. I would have gone over the desk and punched that mother fucker right in the mouth for that shit.

  142. 142.

    Dave

    @cleek: yeah, b/c using the “3/5 reference” to mock a Republican is JUST THE SAME as a right-wing anti-choice zealot using it to try and deny an entire group of people from being pro-choice. The similarities are astounding.

  143. 143.

    geg6

    @Svensker:

    Yes, seriously.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A61804-2005Apr17?language=printer

    (They have a huge ad at the top of this page. Just scroll down for the article)

    Upon their son’s death, Rick and Karen Santorum opted not to bring his body to a funeral home. Instead, they bundled him in a blanket and drove him to Karen’s parents’ home in Pittsburgh. There, they spent several hours kissing and cuddling Gabriel with his three siblings, ages 6, 4 and 1 1/2. They took photos, sang lullabies in his ear and held a private Mass. “That’s my little guy,” Santorum says, pointing to the photo of Gabriel, in which his tiny physique is framed by his father’s hand. The senator often speaks of his late son in the present tense. It is a rare instance in which he talks softly.

  144. 144.

    Ija

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):

    Can Oprah sue for trademark infringement? I thought she is the original O. Let me guess, Obama is referred throughout the book as O, as in “O gazes lovingly at the face of his lovely wife M and remembered their first kiss etc etc etc”. That is going to be one insufferable book if it is true.

  146. 146.

    Ija

    @geg6:
    Yeah, I’m not sure about that. It does seem creepy, but I have never lost a child, so I can’t even fathom how I might react. Grief does weird and terrible things to people, and as much as he is a certified grade-A asshole, he was also a father who lost a child.

  147. 147.

    KG

    @geg6: I’m a pro-choice libertarian, and I think that is where a lot of libertarians come down. Some talk about overturn Roe to the point that it becomes a state issue, again. The problem with that position is that I don’t see a clear way to do that as a matter of jurisprudence.

    There are some pro-life libertarians, many of whom put the interests of the unborn child on equal footing of the mother. It has never been a position that really made sense to me. Post-viability, it’s a different question, in my mind, but pre-viability? I just can’t go that far.

  148. 148.

    geg6

    @Ija:

    I know lots of people who have lost children at birth, my parents being some of them. And every single one of them is (or in the case of my parents, even my mother who was rabidly forced birth) totally creeped out by this. Totally.

  149. 149.

    Calouste

    @eemom:

    Doesn’t seem to be a problem with the GOP. Actually holding an office when you run for president is frowned upon there. GWB was the first Republican to be elected president while holding an elected office since 1920.

  150. 150.

    Angry Geometer

    Only people who have never been genocided and enslaved and such get to have opinions on life and so forth.

    Straight white males are the only non-special interest group, so it makes sense to let them be the moral arbiters and rulers of everything. Everyone else is hopelessly biased and cannot be trusted.

  151. 151.

    geg6

    @KG:

    Well, you’re the very first libertarian I have ever met or “met on the Intertrons” who is pro-choice. Literally.

  152. 152.

    Midnight Marauder

    @shortstop:

    But kyle wasn’t suggesting it was “accurate or politic” to compare black people with fetuses. He was explaining to ABL and others that Santorum’s inaccurate and impolitic argument isn’t based on black people not being full people. It’s based on Santorum pretending that the attempt to assign full personhood to embryos is identical to the civil rights struggles of African Americans.

    And, of course, the civil rights struggles of black Americans was an effort to receive equal treatment in the eyes of society and the law as their white counterparts, so the distinction you are making is rather erroneous. Moreover, if Santorum isn’t basing his argument on black Americans once being considered subhuman, why then is this statement a part of his argument?

    I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.’

    Why is it remarkable for a black man to take such a position if Santorum isn’t invoking the history of second class citizenship for black Americans?

  154. 154.

    shortstop

    @Midnight Marauder:

    And, of course, the civil rights struggles of black Americans was an effort to receive equal treatment in the eyes of society and the law as their white counterparts, so the distinction you are making is rather erroneous.

    You’re not getting the distinction. This is what Santorum thinks he’s saying: “Black Americans once had to fight to be treated as fully human. Today, we’re engaged in a similar fight to get unborn humans the same rights as born humans. Black people, of all people, who were once enslaved as the unborn are now enslaved, should understand this.”

    (I don’t want to risk being misunderstood on this, too, so I’ll add: No, of course I don’t agree that fetuses = humans; I’m summarizing what Santorum–and most of the anti-choice lobby– is saying.)

    Moreover, if Santorum isn’t basing his argument on black Americans once being considered subhuman, why then is this statement a part of his argument?

    I didn’t say he isn’t basing his argument on black Americans once being considered subhuman. I said he’s not basing it on black people currently being considered subhuman. He is drawing what he thinks is a historical parallel: the inequality of African Americans then compared to what he thinks is the inequality of fetuses now.

    Look, there are all kinds of reasons to blow this guy’s bullshit away: the conflation of actual human beings with fetuses; the inability to recognize that African Americans (two layers to this: black people in general and black women in particular) make their own fully informed choices; the lack of acknowledgment that under slavery, black women were routinely forced to bear children which were then stripped from them, etc. He patronizes the living daylights out of African Americans here. But what he was not arguing was that we should still think black people are subhuman.

    Again, this is not a new argument. This is a mainstay of the anti-choice movement. And they use it specifically because they think they’re cleverly turning liberals’ interest in equal rights and liberties against us.

  155. 155.

    shortstop

    @shortstop: Too late to edit: I’ll add that another reason the anti-choicers use this argument is that it drums up helpful resentment among the usual segment of dumbshit whites against African Americans: “Black people are always talking about how badly they’ve been treated! Well, what about the unborn!?”

  156. 156.

    asiangrrlMN

    @geg6: Wow. Just…wow. Yeah.

    As to Ricky, I like the way Steve Benen put it. Santorum is scolding the president for getting to decide who is or isn’t a person, but only because the president doesn’t draw the same line as he does.

    @Midnight Marauder: I agree with your assessment. The added bit about ‘almost remarkable (but not quite, apparently) for a black man to say blah-di-blah’ only makes sense if Santorum is going with the idea that ‘well, blacks used to be not considered people.’

  159. 159.

    MJ

    Apparently, forcing enslaved women to bear children for powerful people’s fun & profit, has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH forcing poor women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term for powerful religious people’s sh*ts and giggles.

    Why? Because shut up, that’s why!

  160. 160.

    zuzu (not that one, the other one)

    The antichoicers have been focusing on black populations for a while, albeit clumsily. For example, early last year, a billboard went up in a black neighborhood in Atlanta claiming that black children are an “endangered species” and that abortion is a means of extermination. From a post in Bourgie, Interrupted discussing the Atlanta billboard and a similar one in Poland:

    Just like Black folks in America have always had a healthy (and often justified) mistrust of white-led movements/organizations purporting to help out the community, Poles still have a nasty taste in their mouth from the Nazi occupation of their country during WWII. Anti-choice forces in America want to use Black Americans’ fears around racism and eugenics to advance their agenda (controlling women’s bodies, sexuality and morality) and Polish anti-choicers are no different.

    Backlash and criticism in reaction to the billboards’ tactics is steadily mounting both home and abroad. One of the pro-choice voices speaking out is Dr. Vanessa Cullins, the vice president for medical affairs at Planned Parenthood Federation of America. When interviewed by the The Plain Dealer, Dr. Cullins said “the language of our painful history has been co-opted and bastardized. They are the racists. These people are trying to use racial issues to destabilize African-American women’s ability to control the size of their families . . . and provide a nurturing environment for their children.” Similarly across the pond, member of Parliament and the parliament’s health committee, Elzbieta Streker-Dembinska, weighed in. “I understand that this campaign is designed to shock but there are limits to the use of shock.” A foetus and Adolf Hitler is unjustified comparison. The design of the billboard is unacceptable and crosses the boundaries of decency.”

    If there’s anything I learned during my three years of feminist blogging, it’s that reproductive choice as it intersects with race is way more complex than I ever imagined from my white middle-class perspective. Reproductive choice to me means the ability to not have children, while for many black and other racial-minority women, it may mean being able to *have* children and to keep them.

    Of course, what Santorum and the Atlanta billboard people miss is that women in dire circumstances seek abortions they may not otherwise have done; maybe work on fixing those dire circumstances, and you’d see fewer abortions.

    Also: they’re targeting birth control. They’ve already had a great deal of success getting pharmacists and health care providers protection via conscience clauses.

    ETA: @MJ: Yes, that’s the book I was thinking of and couldn’t remember the title.

  161. 161.

    MJ

    @zuzu (not that one, the other one): Read that book my third year of college-and it absolutely blew my mind. Life would be so much better if oppressed folks understood just how similar our struggles against hegemony are–even if it seems like we’re fighting for completely different things.

  162. 162.

    shortstop

    @zuzu (not that one, the other one): Writing the post above, I started thinking about how I don’t hear much these days from the anti-choice forces about how abortion is specifically designed to wipe out African Americans. I wondered if the anti-choicers had finally laid off that cynical line of fearmongering, even as they continue the abortion = slavery comparisons. Sad to learn that they haven’t.

  163. 163.

    shortstop

    @asiangrrlMN: Right, but as I clarified my previous statements in a post just above yours, he’s mentioning it because he’s trying to draw a lame comparison between history for African Americans and the present for fetuses.

  164. 164.

    zuzu (not that one, the other one)

    @MJ: In the case of reproductive choice/reproductive justice, the base issue is control of women’s bodies and sexuality; it’s just that the means of control differs based on the woman’s race and her utility to the white male power structure. Black women are viewed by this power structure as undesirable, so efforts are made to keep them from reproducing or at least increase the social, economic and political costs for doing so (hello, Welfare Queen!), whereas white women who produce white children are pressured into remaining fertile and hectored for not reproducing fast enough, young enough, or often enough — and, as we saw with Ross Douthat, for not giving away their unwanted babies to richer white women.

    It’s two sides of the same coin, really.

  165. 165.

    jTh

    @freelancer: Nyah, they don’t suck. I don’t care for them much myself, but their talents are rather remarkable. Melodically, there are OUT there in profoundly not-sucking territory, and they employed some stout musicians. And they’re marvelous for smoothing the mood after bringing a lovely new friend home and snorting some coke, also. (Like I said, SD don’t suit me personally either.)

  167. 167.

    Svensker

    @KG:

    I’m a pro-choice libertarian, and I think that is where a lot of libertarians come down

    Yes. When I was a libertarian (70s and 80s) I was very surprised to meet anti-abortion libertarians, didn’t know they existed. Maybe things have changed since then.

  168. 168.

    Upper West

    @MagicPanda:

    I think it makes some sense in the pro-life view — slaves are not people under Scott; fetuses are not people under Roe. In both cases, rights are denied (for slaves standing to sue; for fetuses, the right to be born).

    I don’t agree with it for a lot of reasons. (Are woman people?) But it does have some internal logic.

  169. 169.

    matoko_chan

    @geg6: EDK is just as much a mortal enemy of ALL OF US SAPIENTS as Douchebag and McMegan…and Santorum.
    Cole was spoofed.
    And now he cant own up to it.
    pussy.

  172. 172.

    serena1313

    Maybe Santorum thinks it is okay to express his opposition — to women having domain over their own bodies and the right to privacy — in the most disgusting, vile, inappropriate way possible, but he is wrong; It is not okay; It is unacceptable.

    Santorum’s ego-centric self-righteousness is as distasteful as it is obnoxious. This man is about as shallow as they come and equally as ignorant. The only reason he is making such outrageous, racist, ugly remarks is to gain national attention.

    Today the more extreme one is the more free-press they get. Worse because the media loves to talk about things like this, as if it is mainstream ‘normal,’ without context, Santorum and others will continue without qualm.

    Unless the public pushes back against this ugliness it will become part of the national dialogue. We’ve stayed silent too long. It is time we stand up for what we believe. If we don’t, then what does that say about us collectively and individually? It says we are equally hypocritical and self-absorbed. Moreover we forfeit the right to condemn the type of language and expressions we claim to abhor. And that is unacceptable.

  173. 173.

    Tattoosydney

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The thing is the opposite logic works at least as well. “Black people once weren’t legally people and could be controlled and forced to give birth at the whims of another, so they, more than anyone else, should appreciate the freedom to control their own bodies.”

    Just jumping into what I expect is a dead thread to say:

    This.

  174. 174.

    matoko_chan

    and not a sign on this thread of that fucking glibertarian assclown, EDK.
    crickets.

    whorish coward.

Comments are closed.