This really made me laugh:
Not to tempt the gods of non sequitur, but contrary to what the White House insists, Rush Limbaugh is not the leader of the GOP. Even so, he does have a large audience and it is disconcerting that so many seem to share his obvious hostility toward women. Several of his cohorts in discourtesy are snorting and grunting in my inbox even now.
One who wrote in defense of Limbaugh informed me of my place in God’s hierarchy, slightly above goats, and gave me a tutorial about why women have been saddled with the monthly inconvenience and painful childbirth — for tempting men to do evil and failing to recognize their roles as “helpmeets” for men.
“Pagan women like yourself,” he patiently averred, “have no regard for the natural order of God’s plan and shamelessly promulgate the ‘we are goddesses’ bile that has infected the entire country and pretty much stopped it in its tracks from incurring God’s blessing.” I’m leaving out the best parts.
cathyx
I’m spanking myself right now for being such a temptress. So I guess I deserve that monthly curse after all.
Gex
Why are there so many (blanks) willing to demean themselves to legitimize right wing bigotry?
I kind of wonder similar things about the people who sign up to play the role of the fat guy on shows that like to insult/embarrass the fat character.
suzanne
Oh, don’t worry, you men seem to have no problem doing evil without my encouragement. You’ve got that whole committing evil thing DOWN.
I can’t keep up with these people. I thought y’all were supposed to marry us because we were a civilizing influence.
Whatever. Iron your own damn shirts.
BGinCHI
You know, assholes, there are more bible stories after the first part of Genesis.
Fucking human progress, how does it work?
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
Reality in politics is over rated. It is perception of reality that runs the show. Politics 101, and the GOP has violated the rule with extreme prejudice. I expect a similar show when immigration reform takes the stage.
It is republican id leading the GOP, Rush is just the horse it rode in on.
New Yorker
I’m guessing that after Obama wins in November with 60+% of the female vote, the 19th Amendment will become a target of Teatards who consider the constitution “sacred” (along with the 14th and 16th).
currants
It is funny, and I can laugh at this too–from my current perspective. But I was raised with people preaching that all over the place (sure, and youth pastors taking liberties all over), and it took me 12 years to stop voting republican, and the 20 years since to get enough distance to not feel my gut twist when I hear or read these things. From here, I can say that’s some kind of evil to do to girl children–children in general, but girls in particular. But it’s continuing unabated.
cathyx
And Rush Limbaugh is too the leader of the GOP. They wouldn’t be on their knees apologizing to him when they insult him if he weren’t.
quannlace
Yup. And where there’s no wimmen’s around, men live chaste and exemplary lives. Like when they’re in prison.
David Koch
Keep fucking that chicken, wingers.
Soonergrunt
So now Brick Oven Bill is emailing Kathleen Parker?
Josie
She puts forward that same old tired argument that the government should not force anyone to pay for something that violates their moral beliefs. That sounds just great, except that the government has been forcing me to pay for wars that I don’t believe in for all my adult life. I refuse to let these good Christians off the hook unless they pay me back all that money.
RedKitten
I’m glad you find it hilarious. Personally, I find it really fucking frightening to realize that there are a LOT of people who genuinely feel this way. All I can do is hope and wish that they remain unmarried and childless for the rest of their lives, so as to not harm anybody with their bile.
Urza
Correct me if i’m wrong, but isn’t Kathleen Parker a republican?
bit tired of hearing the same things over and over so I didn’t read her full article if it was in there
dmsilev
@BGinCHI:
Of course. There’s that one line in um Leviticus I think about how homosexuals are evil. There’s all the smiting, that’s essential. Plagues of locusts.
I think that about covers it.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Josie:
By wingnut definition, only people of faith have morals. You anti-war types can just leave if you object to God’s plan of forever war and “supporting the troops”.
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
Of course there are. Remember about Er, Onan, and Tamar, which is proof that contraception is Teh Ebil. And you can’t forget the bits in Leviticus that tell us that Teh Ghey is terrible- though it’s fine to ignore the bits about not eating pork and shellfish.
Maude
@RedKitten:
Makes me so glad that Congress can’t establish a state religion.
BO_Bill
Women who simply embrace their femininity are by far happier and more pleasant to be around than those who insist on being men. I mean, good Lord, look at Hillary Clinton. The reason women have boobs is because God, or Mother Nature or, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or whatever, intended them to raise children, not fly fighter planes.
Defying Mother Nature’s plan can get you killed.
Hey, Soonergrunt, we do get affirmative action. Look it up.
MonkeyBoy
“helpmeets” is a real word and may be somewhat Mormon associated.
Here are a few hits from the above google search:
dmsilev
@Soonergrunt: Judging by his appearance here, looks like it.
I never thought it’d be possible to feel sorry for Kathleen Parker.
David Koch
Dougie,
you actually missed a priceless column by Sally Quinn who thought it was ridiculous to say there was a war on women until she opened her hate mail for criticizing Limbaugh use of the word “slut”.
She was shocked! — Shocked! — to discover conservative held such views.
You can just see her clutching her pearls and lying down on the fainting couch.
Spaghetti Lee
@cathyx:
Rowr! Room for one more?
Anya
If I might be excused for a related OT.
This whole stupid debate about Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke drives me crazy. Whenever Republicans or pundits trout out the fallacy that “this liberal comedian or commentator called Sarah Palin names” — why don’t liberals counter with countless examples of misogynistic attacks against Nancy Pelosi or Hillary Clinton, not to mention the unprecedented attacks against Michelle Obama? Why do they always revert to “well one is a public figure and the other is not?” Why can’t they strengthen their case by pointing out the countless of elected female politicians who are attacked and called sexist things and why this particular attack was different?
Linda
@David Koch:
Quinn might be obtuse, but at least she finally got it through her head re: the whole “war on women” concept. Parker sees missiles in state legislatures, Congress, and her own email, and is still not getting that there’s a war, and is creating elaborate rationalizations for the aggressors.
cathyx
@Spaghetti Lee: Certainly not. I’ve been too naughty.
scav
For no real additional reason, this is what set me off. KP, if it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck and goes beep beep beep next to a Geiger counter . . .
And then I read the URL
~/opinions/democrats-are-making-hay-with-gop-fumbling-with-women/blah/blahand off I went again. Either fondling or fumbling with the helpmeets that lot.
WereBear
Of course Rush Limbaugh is the leader of the GOP. It’s self-evident that no one loves him for himself.
shortstop
dmsmilev, reading the entire column will fix that pesky sympathy problem but good.
JGabriel
DougJ:
This part is pretty funny too, Kathleen Parker:
It feels like a slut-shaming duck, and looks like a slut-shaming duck, but it’s actually a fluffy concern-troll kitten? That’s so sweet, Kathleen.
.
piratedan
methinks Kathleen won’t get it until she’s forced to carry to term a birth not of her own choosing, otherwise, it’s an “other peoples problem”.
Suffern ACE
@JGabriel: Yep. The men are doing this out of moral concerns. Women? Just outsiders reacting to looks and feelings.
fasteddie9318
Doug, I can’t believe you made me get out of the boat to read Kathleen Parker.
You can shorter the whole thing: “This so-called Republican ‘War on Women’ may walk like a duck, quack like a duck, fly like a duck, look like a duck, smell like a duck, taste real good in an orange sauce, and say ‘you’re desthpicable’ when it gets mad at you, but IT IS NOT A NUCLEAR DUCK GODDAMNIT BECAUSE THE FILTHY DEMOCRATS AND ALSO TOO SHUT UP!”
scav
@JGabriel: And I loved to see her clutching the cute little snowflake to her breasts shouting “It’s not about contraception! It’s not about basic health care! It’s all about the culture of recreational abortion and the baaaayyyy-bbeeeeess!” as the sad little snowlfake melted away from the heat of her tears.
fasteddie9318
@BO_Bill: Goddamn, the ladies must love you.
dmsilev
@shortstop: Well, that’s certainly true. And I’m pretty sure that she’ll soon rediscover her inner conservative hack, which will definitely wipe out any sympathy I might have had.
Roger Moore
@Anya:
I think the reason people are digging out the “not a public figure” business is because it’s the best way of attacking the “both sides do it” narrative. The truth is that people on the left do use demeaning terms to talk about people on the right. They may not do it as often or as nastily as the other side, but “slightly less vile than the other guy” isn’t a very strong argument. OTOH, nobody on the left that anyone can point to has used the same kind of language against ordinary citizens on the right, and certainly not with the kind of sustained viciousness that Limbaugh used against Sandra Fluke. It’s a point of real, clear distinction, which makes it a much better one to make than one of degree.
jl
@Josie:
True, Parker does push some tired old nonsense (euphemism alert).
” But Republicans are waging war on women only if you believe that the morality of abortion should never be questioned or if you believe the federal government can order people to pay for something that violates their conscience.”
Talk about straw (wo)men arguments. No one in favor of reproductive rights ever questions any kind of abortion procedure at all? So some one comes on in for a late term abortion because she changed her mind, or hubby decided wants to spend the money set aside for kid on man toys? That OK with everyone, right? Sure it is. And what you said about immoral wars (foreign, drug, and others) that we all have to pay for.
” These issues are not so simple, nor are Republicans simpletons for trying to protect the unborn or challenging what they view as government overreach. ”
I don’t think I ever thought the the GOP politicians were simpletons on the issue. Hypocrites and cynical opportunists, yes, simpletons, no.
Parker is good at writing chirpy and upbeat back peddling, though. I give her that much.
Shari
Genesis 3:16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”
No insurance coverage for pain killers during childbirth coming to you soon.
Egg Berry
@jl:
Wow, that is some weapons-grade stupid there.
Tara the Antisocial Social Worker
@New Yorker:
You forgot the 13th.
JGabriel
@dmsilev:
Yes, Parker found her inner hack before she finished the column.
.
shortstop
Oh, but Kathleen said something funny, so everyone stop being so anal and twitchy about the crap that is the overall column and high five each other over this precious snark! See, we’re even winning over sassy GOP female columnists now! Wait, what?
quannlace
Yes, we know, cause PIAPP was the Right’s favorite acronym for her back in ’08.
*********
And the age-old problem has always been women trying to act like men.
Joan of Arc was prosecuted even more for the effrontery of dressing like a man, than heresy or war against the English.
Roger Moore
@Tara the Antisocial Social Worker:
I think they’re going for everything from the 13th on. The people who say the Republicans want to return the country to the 50’s are right. It’s just that it’s the 1850’s that are their real goal, not the 1950’s.
jl
@shortstop:
Parker, like Brooks, knows how to head fake towards sanity, sensible argument, and good faith at regular intervals.
Like Brooks, she also tries to head fake with empirical evidence too, but like Brooks, that effort almost always goes bad.
Anyway, I agree. From my experience reading her, she always returns to hack GOP viewpoint as her main line of business.
WereBear
I left the culture of my birth, my religion, and the geographic place where I’d been raised: all because of this kind of idiocy. If I was going to have a equal life partner, a chance at satisfying work, some kind of creative outlet, and a modicum of respect; I had to ditch everything. So I did.
And it’s not just women: you can imagine what kind of marriages arise from such poor soil:
Yup. That kind.
Polar Bear Squares
How is she supposed to be your helpmeet with ALL THAT DAMN ASPIRIN BETWEEN HER KNEES?
Being a wingnut womernz must be hard.
Kirbster
Even after 50 years, a lot of people still regard oral contraceptives as some sort of disreputable recreational drug instead of a legitimate hormonal regulation medication with many benefits to women besides preventing pregnancy. No other commonly prescribed drug has this sort of moral baggage. It should be no more controversial than blood pressure medication (which could be thwarting God’s plan for you to have a stroke).
ET
I just don’t understand the willful misunderstanding of reality. Sure Limbuagh holds no official position in the RNC or any state GOP party, he is also not a Member of Congress – ranking or otherwise – but when so many GOPers bow and scrap and kiss his feet it is hard to outsiders to understand that Limbaugh does lead the GOP and conservatives – he just does it on the radio. When a GOPer goes off the reservation it is Rush that brings him/her home (sort of like a slave catcher after runaway salves). Frankly consider the behavior of many party members when it comes to Rush he has turned them into slaves albeit with their permission.
I know she doesn’t want to admit it that he is a leader because really who would want someone like that leading anyone, but ignoring the reality and continually saying but he isn’t that important just looks dumb.
Anya
@Roger Moore: I am just pointing out that the right always attacks Nancy Pelosi but no one freaks out about it. I am not saying that we should argue that “the other side is worse than our side” or “look they attack Pelosi too.” No, my argument is that yes, many people use misogynistic rhetoric against women politicians and it’s wrong, but attacks against Sandra Fluke are different, mainly because she’s a private citizen. My other point is why is Sarah Palin their poster child when many women politicians face the same thing?
Odie Hugh Manatee
As Tweety says; “He’s the spiritual leader of the Republican party.”
No Republican in any position of power will stand up to Rush. Not one.
He is their leader because they fear him and his audience. Until they take him down, he will remain their leader.
Rush owns the Republican party because they gave it to him.
Gex
@suzanne: They don’t need to be consistent.
Michelle Bachmann argued that there aren’t really gay people, just people who were abused by their parents. And that’s while she’s arguing that straight parents are the best parents always. And no one in the media bothered to point that out.
jl
I get what many will think is a oddball, out of the way, thought when this stuff comes up, and maybe I will get criticized for it as missing the main point.
But this stuff, besides demeaning women, also demeans home making. Probably because memories of farms I grew up on, I find home life in the city relatively dreary and barren compared to on farm.
Which brings up thought that the GOP traditional old barefoot and preggers wife in the kitchen is supposed to be a return to the goold old days when everyone was normal and all children were above average. But that was really the freakish suburban dystopia of the 50’s, not olde tymey at all.
Maybe it is an out west thing, but when I heard stories about my ancestors pioneering out in the CA boondocks, the little woman did stay mostly at home, due to technology and custom. But that is where the little woman ran her home business (produce garden, chicken coop and eggs, etc.) which she took to market and sold. And the manly man had to fix crap that broke around the house, since there were no plumbers or electricians to call up, there were not telephones to call up with, either.
So this crud is demeaning to women, demeaning to the idea of a fully rounded and creative home life. An ahistorical fantasy that produces unhealthy men, women, children and homes. All in the name of any lie for votes, feeding destructive juvenile sexual and economic domination fantasies of scared men and their codependent wimminfolk.
PurpleGirl
If every woman who currently attends a church became pagan tomorrow and stopped going wherever, the churches would collapse into utter nothingness. It may be men who speechify in the churches and control policy and whatnot. But it is the millions of women attending those churches who clean the altar clothes and priests vestments/robes. They clean the communion vessels and take care that there is wine and wafer in stock, They make up most of the choirs and often are the piano/organ players. I’m sure I’ve left out lots of what women do. And if they stopped doing it all, the men would have idea about what needed to done. (During my years as Lutheran, I got to see how much depended on the women of the congregation.)
Gex
@quannlace: Or the RCC.
opie jeanne
@BO_Bill: So men never crash planes due to pilot error?
Women make better pilots than men (generally speaking) because our reaction time in general is faster.
opie jeanne
@MonkeyBoy: Helpmeet goes back a long way before Joseph Smith’s great great grandpa was a leafy hint on Ancestry.com.
jl
@opie jeanne: I think BO_Bill was referring to the well know fact that no male aircraft carrier pilot ever crashed his plain on flight exercises, because of God given he-manness, which is given only to he-men.
Oh wait a minute…
Gex
@jl: If these issues aren’t simple, then government should let families decide, and they can do it by making things legal and offering options.
@WereBear: I bet those wives are allowed to bash themselves though while explaining repeatedly how they keep failing their men.
@opie jeanne: AND men are by far bigger risk takers.
Felonious Wench
@opie jeanne:
Ignore it. It’s still upset about the girl who wouldn’t accept its Valentines Day candy in 4th grade.
denali
There is some weight to the argument that attacking Sandra Fluke was wrong because she is a private citizen-not a public figure. This was what was so offensive to people in English when the emails of the family of a girl who was raped and murdered were hacked by the press. In both cases, the intrusiveness and slander is viewed as unfair and unjust because it becomes apparent that anyone can be subjected to this treatment.
Felonious Wench
@jl:
One of my great-grandmothers (among a long line of no BS Texas women) ran a ranch by herself during the Great Depression. Her husband had TB and was in a sanitarium, so she managed the ranch hands, cooked all of the meals, worked the horses, and sold the livestock. She was 91 when she died, still drinking beer and eating steaks for dinner.
She’d have gelded Rush for fun.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@jl:
Ain’t it the truth. I spent much of my youth, really truly in the country life. Not just hobby farming, but subsistence near complete. Pigs, cows, chickens, massive garden, canning for winter, and even moonshining my grandpappy insisted on his nerve medicine, as most the other men folk did in the valley, so he had two stills, and some toothless ridgerunner named Chester minding them.
We were always doing something that was food or shelter related. I used to tag along for both the mens’s activities, like running trot lines in the river that had to be checked regular, squirrel hunting, frog gigging, and even rattlesnake hunting in the summer, driving the gravel roads at night where they would crawl out onto the warmer gravel. And helped the women folk as well, with canning stuff and the garden, and even learned how to crochet.
And make runs to the dug well for water, sometimes pulling up snakes, frogs, you name it. Great way to grow up, and I miss it dearly.
Oh, and as for ‘home making’, me and a bud broke the glass ceiling for men taking Home Ec in our high school, and joined the FHA club. Put a real twist on the adults heads, co captains of the football team wearing aprons and puttering around the school kitchen making cookies and shit. It was 1971, and we weren’t going to let an opportunity go by for making our mark on being the schools first hippie jocks. And the fringe bennies weren’t bad either.
Jonny Scrum-half
@Roger Moore: Was Carrie Prejean a “public figure”?
The prophet Nostradumbass
SHARIA LAW! BURQAS! EVILS OF ISLAM! What, that letter didn’t come from Saudi Arabia?
jl
@Felonious Wench:
” great-grandmothers (among a long line of no BS Texas women) ran a ranch by herself ”
I used to deliver hay to a few “ol’ gals” like that in the Sierra foothills.
Sorry for the ‘gal’, but everyone who ran their own operation seemed to be called an “ol’ gal” or “ol’ boy”, where I grew up.
ColleenMary
Y’know, that “helpmeet”/helper thing is completely enraging on still another level: it’s a lousy translation of the Bible. “Ezer kenegdo” has zero to do with someone who can “help” ’cause they can’t do it all themselves, or someone who is less than the one they’re helping. Here’s the thing: Ezer can translate to “help”, but also to “strength” or “power” and quite frankly when it’s used in other places in the Bible it tends to be in phrases like “the Lord is my help,” which is a much different kind of help than the kind envisioned by people who like the word “helpmeet.” “Ezer kenegdo” would be better translated “a power equal to” or “a strength that stands up to.”
jl
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Dig, and later on, dig out, any privies?
Lay away the produce in the root cellar?
Milk the damn cows?
Probably a different mix of stuff to do, but that sounds like life with the AK branch of my fambly.
On CA farm, our moonshine was some kind of peasant wine/laxative/primitive soda pop the old timers made in a ceramic pot on the kitchen counter. Medicinal off course, but it packed a wallop, at both ends if you were not accustomed to it.
Anyway, I am not sure how the submissive wife bit would go down on a farm, at least the style I knew. If the he man thought he was going to dictate to the the little wimmins what she was to do with a produce crop, fruit, or a batch of eggs or chickens, or etc. she had slaved over in the hot sun, his nuts would be a prime target for a swift kick.
Edit Comes to mind, hardest thing I remember, making a silage pit, and then making the stuff, and then doling it out, with shovels and wheelbarrows. When we got a little tractor with a shovel, that was heaven.
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
godesses vs helpmeets?
what a rivalry.
Felonious Wench
@jl:
She was known as Big Momma to everyone, so no apology necessary. :)
jl
@Felonious Wench:
Big Momma, sounds good to me. I would never mess with anyone named Big Momma.
And edit: for shovel and wheelbarrow handcrafted artisinal silage I mentioned above, the girls on the farm did as much work as the boys.
Devils work, those farms and ranches. That is where the rot in our society started.
Jess
@Josie: Since freely-available contraceptives actually lower health-care costs, will those same “conscience-stricken” folks also refuse to profit from providing contraceptives in the form of lower insurance premiums?
Jess
@JGabriel:
LOL. I may need to steal that…
jim filyaw
there was a time when the pulitizer prize meant something.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero): “Oh, and as for ‘home making’, me and a bud broke the glass ceiling for men taking Home Ec in our high school…”
Now that is fucking funny because I did the same thing in high school (’76). Mrs. Jones asked me why I was signing up and I told her that I planned on being a bachelor for some time and thought the Home Ec. classes would be a good idea. I was given a rash of shit for it by my peers but it didn’t bother me a bit. I pointed out to them that I wasn’t stupid either as I was going to be the only guy in a classroom full of chicks.
One bud joined me and a bunch of the guys came streaming in the next semester. What’s really funny is that led to me being the first assistant in the first Girls Auto Shop class. The auto shop teacher was really cool and our senior class bought him a fifth of JD as a gift (his initials were JD). It was then that we found out that he was a Mormon…lol!
Jess
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
Cool story, Bro.
It is, actually.
jl
@Jonny Scrum-half:
I do not know what the official definition of ‘public figure’ is, so don’t know if it applies to a beauty pageant contestant. But looking at Wikipedia, here is then mayor of SF Gavin Newsom, and gay marriage legal insurrectionist:
‘ Newsom defended Prejean’s right to an opinion.
“I want to challenge her on her point of view, but she spoke her conscience, I think she’s being a little unfairly maligned,” Newsom said. ‘
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Newsom-Defends-Miss-California.html
No record that he back peddled. I am sure vile swamps of blogdom, like Balloon Juice had some interesting comments though.
jl
Can’t find anything about Prejean until the topless pics of her came out. After that happened, then I find some mean stuff by the front posters.
Prejean was compared to Joe the Plumber after the topless pics and firing and the lawsuit, etc. I have to admit that is a low blow and there is no place in our civil discourse for comparisons like that.
General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero)
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
LOL,
Trailblazers to history, we was. :)
opie jeanne
@WereBear: I think it’s telling that they had to ban husband-bashing.
Mnemosyne
@jl:
I need to think about this more, but I think you’re on to something. The reason that men’s and women’s jobs tended to be split into “inside home” and “outside home” was that running a household pre-electricity was a FUCKTON of work, and the lady of the house had to direct everyone in order to get shit done.
I’m trying to think of a “1950s = hobby farm” comparison, but it’s late and I’m tired.
Suffern ACE
@jl: OK. But after Perez Hilton called her a bitch, and followed up by calling her a c#nt during his apology, was there “that’s over the line” or a bunch of crickets.
Cain
@General Stuck (Bravo Nope Zero):
Never mind, home ec, has the two things boys at that age love: girls and food.
Win/win situation IMHO. They wouldn’t let me take home ec in high school, I had to take shop. I fucking hated shop. Every fucking day I would walk past the home ec room and there would be the most wonderful smells coming out of there..
harlana
so you didn’t care about other people’s kids being killed in an unnecessary war based on lies
it took 11 years and legislative assaults on your individual persons for you to see the light
and no, you don’t get a pass for enabling the killers and their supporters just because you are women
not in my book
nice going, ladies
(golf clap)
J R in W Va
@jim filyaw: Not really. I was so disappointed to learn that news organizations put together formal applications for the PP, frequently leather bound to have more “weight”.
ETA: why on earth was this moderated?
evinfuilt
@piratedan:
Why do you think she’d get it then. Plenty of people have had abortions while wailing about how evil it is, and only THEIRS is for a good/valid reason.