I’ve read this several times and I can’t figure out the logic of it. Is Charles C. W. Cooke using some kind of sarcasm or secret coded language that I don’t understand because I don’t speak wingnut? Suppose Bill Gates is successful in developing a female hormonal contraceptive that lasts for 16 years and can be turned on and off by wireless device. And suppose that the Republican Party decided as a group that they would be supportive of this new device. Why would this guarantee the Republican Party electoral victories for the next 100 years?
I’m baffled.
error is in looking for logic among the illogical.
As the man once said, it’s like trying to find gold in a silver mine, or trying to drink whiskey from a bottle of wine.
I think he’s saying:
Yeah, it’s dumb.
If that’s it, it’s so dumb that it almost defies imagination. Plus, conservatives would never support it.
It’s a little – but only a little – more nuanced than that. The historically large gender gap means men already support Republicans, but women don’t. But that’s only because of birth control – remove that as an issue, and women love Republicans, too. Because in the hermetically sealed wingnut universe, everyone loves the Republicans on every other issue.
I share Brother Parrish’s understanding here. Cooke’s claim that the GOP would be guaranteed all elections for a century is intended as part satirical hyperbole, part wishful thinking. Satire is supposed to deliver a kernel of truth with a dollop of humor, though. Since Cooke’s bit includes neither of these attributes, it’s understandable that the satire is lost to those of us outside the wingnut world.
The truly funny thing in Cooke’s post is the supposed program which gained a grant from the Gates Foundation. Two problems there:
I can see why that could be considered a real breakthrough, but I shudder at the thought of some wingnut being able to hack into my birth control and being able to turn it off.
Bonus points for being able to do it remotely, so I wouldn’t even know.
Yeah, I noticed that last part too, WaterGirl.
Suppose pigs could fly — then pray for bacon t-shirts would be funny.
He elides over why Catholics/fundies/GOP would find the implanted sixteen year contraception device acceptable. (A mistake the Catholic John Rock made.) Could it be the wifi controller that appeals to them? IOW, someone other than the woman decides for her. How that would make all their existing arguments against contraception irrelevant is a mystery to me, but it wouldn’t be their first hypocritical pivot.
Then he assumes that the only reason that Democrats often get more votes than Republicans is because the latter opposes birth control. I suppose someone from a distant planet looking down at US politics could draw such a conclusion, but it ignores a few other major issues.
Who would seem to benefit most from such a device would be the device manufacturers. They could earn sixteen years worth of contraception sales upfront. Doesn’t sound like a win for women, but it’s best not to underestimate public acceptance of high-tech solutions in search of a problem.
Also: There are plenty of other proven cheaper and easier ways to practice birth control, for women and for men, that people will still want to use and that Wingnuttistan will still hate. Regardless of what the Catholic Church et al. say, that’ll still be a major issue.
Religious opposition to what was a settled issue for the last half century didn’t matter politically until the Tea Party waded into those waters a couple of years ago. Then, the churches became a convenient way to dignify the root misogyny behind this “issue,” but the misogyny won’t be affected in the least by new technology.
There’s no reason to think that the wingnuts will stop frothing if religious institutions do. They’re still going to be apoplectic at the idea that any woman, anywhere can have agency over her own body and life.
Not if manufacturers discontinue production of those proven cheaper and easier methods.
Beg to differ that this was a settled matter before the rise of the TeaParty. The religious right has been active in its opposition to contraception and birth control since they became legal. If the public discourse focused on abortion, it was but a strategic move to get what they viewed as the lowest hanging fruit first. They tackled contraception from various angles — abstinence sex education, purity balls, and pharmacist conscience clauses were but three. There’s been a war on Planned Parenthood for decades.
Cheapest way and 100% effective is oral/anal sex. Used for millenia, at least back to the Old Stone Age.
Something tells me the GOP doesn’t like that either.
Spurious conclusions and logical leaps all around. As stated by some of the women here, the only possible way they might accept this is because other people could potentially have control over it.
Anyway, where and why and how does Cook think this would settle the issue? They fight contraception because bodily autonomy is KEY and integral to women’s liberation. Everyone — except Slate people like Lord Saletan — knows this. Conservatives see this as a problem for several reasons, and those reasons either stem from misogyny or rely on misogyny the same way conservatives rely on racism to oppose the Civil Rights Acts.
Choosing when or if to reproduce allows women to choose career, establish one and build assets, limits money spent on more children than she could normally afford, etcetera. So that obviously interferes with women being properly and brood mares. However, it also means more independence from men, which taken to its logical end point means “the family and the church” is not the primary mechanism with which society should be built, but cooperatives from peoples and individuals through the State or anarchist collectives. Everything conservatives oppose. Hierarchy and power are integral to conservative ideology. Contraception is threatening for more reasons than directly on the surface. Every society that allows for women to control their own procreation sees women gaining a greater foothold in that society. Zero sum games here; we cannot allow that to happen, amirite, bros?
yes, as usual, this “conservative” male bozo doesn’t even understand his own personality or the personalities of his allies. Imagining (satirically) that such a device would immediately short circuit all the (phony!) Dem complaints about the Repub War on Wimmen(tm) and result in endless conservative dominance is pleasing to him, but fails to recognize that there are deep bedrock reasons (stated by you) why American conservatism has opposed contraception (and abortion) for decades and decades. Although there are plenty of “conservative” women who have never figured this out.
Shorter Cooke: “Imagine that conservatives weren’t demented monsters…we’d win forever!” In short, assume a hammer….
How about sinking a couple million into developing male contraceptive implants?
The Republicans who like the idea of a sixteen year female contraceptive would make it mandatory for women who need government assistance, I’d bet anything on that. It’s all about controlling other people’s lives.
Because being complete assholes hasn’t worked?
As someone over there theorized perhaps the righties think that only liberal women will take the pill, not have the next generation of liberals and then only God-fearing women will have kids. The next generation becomes very fundamental and very right. If not that, I have no idea what he’s talking about.
I’m not going to attempt to parse logic from anything written by a trashbag on the right. They don’t use logic, they use faith, hence any conclusion they come up with is inherently a non-sequitur.
That said, my “radical” politics starts at the assumption that most of the social wedge issues we are stuck trying to win/defend today can be made totally moot with the appropriate technology.
For instance, let’s say that a method of birth control arises that is 100% effective, causes no issues with hormones or other side effects, and is offered to every female in the US over the age of 10, for 100% free. At this point, abortion could be severely restricted (with it still being legal, just very, very hard to get) and 90% of the crying and bitching about women not being forced to give birth would have to give way, because abortion and unwanted pregnancy would be very, very limited.
If this scenario were to occur, all sorts of people who might otherwise vote Republican might switch to Democratic, and vice-versa. But ultimately, we need the technology.
You can go on and on with this with all sorts of issues. Capitalism isn’t inherently evil if there is plenty of available, un-owned resources for people to go out and do things with. How do we get there? Appropriately advanced technology that allows humans to go into space and harvest asteroids and meteors (planetary land ownership should probably be limited to the ability to go and actually live on that land, otherwise you don’t own it…squatter’s rights).
My political philosophy is long-term technology making most of politics as anachronistic as capitalism is now. If our technology advanced fast enough, most politics would become moot as issues of resources, population density, clean water, arabale, land, etc, no longer pose problems.
We can get there sooner rather than later if we can “wake up” from the status quo of RentierCapitalism. Fuck, socialism proper should be the default form of economic governance, since there could be 100 Einsteins out there right now working at McDonalds or Starbucks.
The very notion of capitalism and having to go out and take a piece of the earth for yourself over everyone else takes time and effort away from humanity getting past our current “toddler” stage of development.
/rant