Rick Santorum…Enemy?
Rick Santorum…Enemy?
Donald Rumsfeld, remarks to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council, 8/4/05:
How should we define the enemy? Well, Al Qaida is one face of the terrorists. And they deny women the opportunity to participate in society. One has to ask, How could any society hope to succeed while denying half of its population the opportunity to participate?
VERSUS
Rick Santorum, It Takes A Family:
In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might find they don’t both need to What happened in America so that mothers and fathers who leave their children in the care of someone else – or worse yet, home alone after school between three and six in the afternoon – find themselves more affirmed by society. Here, we can thank the influence of radical feminism, one of the core philosophies of the village elders Sadly the propaganda campaign launched in the 1960s has taken root. The radical feminists succeeded in undermining the traditional family and convincing women that professional accomplishments are the key to happiness.
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That’s a stretch, Christy.
August 4th, 2005 at 5:56 pmNo. It’s not. This is a stretch:
“The fabulous snarky Lehrer started jabbing an obviously frustrated and annoyed Santorum when the topic turned to the abortion issue. By the time they got on the rights of gays, Santorum was virtually yelling at Lehrer. Santorum reiterated his assertion that gay sex is never consensual and that it is a kin to bigamy, polygamy, incest, or adultery. At that point, Lehrer let loose and brought up the fact that Santorum’s Chief of Staff just came out of the closet. Santorum was pissed off that Lehrer brought this up.”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/08/04.html#a4307
August 4th, 2005 at 6:06 pmIf you don’t see the enemy, Brian, you can’t know which side you are on, and then you will just get in the way and end up as “collateral damage”.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:08 pmI think it was a great piece. We are fighting wars to liberate people living under the tyranny of the Taliban or Islamic Fundamentalism, but at the same time we are growing Radical Christian Fundamentalism and Rick Santorum is leading the charge. Hey Rick, you can’t have it both ways and not be called a hypoctite, hypocrite.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:14 pmGranted, Santorum is a neanderthal and a pretty stupid one at that. But I think comparing a stay-at-home-mom with the oppressed Iraqi women is indeed a stretch. If Santorum = enemy then Saddam must = radical feminists in order to support your post. I agree with Brian, that’s is a stretch, Christy.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:15 pmNo, you’ve got it wrong. Santorum is saying in his book that women who have families AND careers are undermining the culture. On a practical level women in the US are certainly not oppressed in the way women under the Taliban were.
However, Santorum is romanticizing a past in which women has clearly defined societal roles that included child raising and did NOT include participation in intellectual and economic life of the culture. In that sense, he is very much like the Taliban that he claims is our “enemy”. Both Islamic and Christian fundamentalism seeks to subjegate women to certain predefined roles.
I think that is the point Christy was making. Don’t be so literal.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:23 pmSantorum is delusional. There’s a great story on alternate about the ‘myth of marriage’ that exists in the imagination of these idiots.
http://www.alternet.org/story/23748/
Marriage has been largely used in western culture as a way to control property (especially women who were viewed as important property) and while Santorum may long for the days when women were in fact slaves – it’s an irresponsible and tragic example of exactly how crazy these cats are. Women are NOT property, and the fact that he’d want ‘traditional western marriage’ which in fact was a state of ‘ownership’ of a wife, just goes to show either how stupid or how cruel and selfish he really is. I’ve heard him speak extensively, and I believe he’s actually stupid – and doesn’t ‘mean’ to be cruel.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:43 pmIt’s not that far a stretch. There are still far too many American men who believe that women are second-class citizens, useful for sex, bearing and raising children, cooking and cleaning. It’s truly not that far between espousing what amounts to a more limited role for women in society and “denying half of its population the opportunity to participate.” If all men start to think that a woman’s place is ONLY in the home, soon it may turn to ‘…and therefore she should keep her nose out of “men’s” business’, i.e., law, politics, business, culture, etc. Therefore, more than half the population’s opinions would be neither solicited nor considered. Not that far a stretch, Brian.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:45 pmJane,
Men statistically vote CONservatively now – so reversing the rights of women to vote would greatly benefit the republicans. It’s not a far stretch at all to imagine roberts being a part of overturning women’s sufferage as being unconstitutional because it’s a law written specifically for a ‘class’. It’s the argument that was part of the 1996 anti-gay discrimination of colorado – and Roberts argued for the gay community that a law couldn’t protect or deny a specific class. From where I sit, I could imagine him and Scalia extending this premise to dely women the right to vote because it wasn’t in the constitution and the laws surrounding it are ’specific to a class’. It’s the kind of crazy mental gymnastics that CONservatives seem to exercise the most to deny fairness to others.
August 4th, 2005 at 6:51 pmI just want Rickie to keep on talking. And man, I hope he runs for president. Jon Stewart take me away…
August 4th, 2005 at 6:55 pm1.) Women were a major reason we won world war II. Many women took factory jobs to make and build guns, aircraft, tanks, and everything else needed for the war.
It wasn’t until after the war when men returned home that the stay at home 1950’s leave it to beaver type mom started showing up in popular culture.
2.) if Santorum was serious about having a single income for parents then they should work on making an economy where one parent can work while the other stays home.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:11 pmThe big problem, to me, is woman who have neither careers nor families, but STILL won’t stay home.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:11 pmSantorum is a bigot who cares about families.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:28 pmRumsfeld is a war criminal who does not care about Iraqi women.
A few quotes from ‘the good book’ on the traditional family:
Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Eph.5:22-24 “Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing.”
1 Pet.3:1 “Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands.”
And, getting back to Rummy, this just in from our best buddies in Saudia Arabia:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3734420.stm
Saudi women barred from voting
Women in the kingdom live with highly circumscribed rights
The Saudi interior minister has said women will not be allowed to vote in the country’s municipal elections starting in February 2005. In response to a question about women’s getting the vote, Prince Nayef bin Sultan said simply: “I don’t think that women’s participation is possible.”
August 4th, 2005 at 7:32 pmRick must think most men make as much money as he does.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:33 pmBrian, the comparison is most definitely not a stretch. See #8 where Jane explains it very well. I was going to write my own reply because I saw all these men expounding on the place of women in society until I got to #8 — she wrote the argument better than I.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:33 pmThose who agree with Santorum are very willing to return to the days of yesteryear when women depended upon men for everything. They were first someone’s daughter, then someone’s wife, then someone’s mother. Who were they?? Did they not think? Could they not participate in society except through a relationship with a male. It took 75 years for women to get the vote. They would have us all withdraw into the sitting room to embroider, while the men took their cigars in the parlor and talked real business.
This follows the earlier topic about birth control/abortion. It’s all about power. It’s always all about power.
It’s a stretch to use the REAL sentiments of Bushco as a corrective baseline for Santorum.
August 4th, 2005 at 7:42 pmMy wife and I are “libers”. We have an agreement that whomever can earn more will do so. The other will raise our kids. We’ll do without the bigger house to keep our kids out of stranger’s hands.
You’re right, Keith. My wife and I are fortunate that we both demand a nice salary.
I think perhaps I missed the point. I guess it is ironic? Rumsfeld saying one thing? Santorum another?
August 4th, 2005 at 7:45 pmI just never imagined Rumsfeld caring about the rights of anyone.
Brian, you’re right, it IS hard to imagine Rumsfeld caring about the rights of anyone. And, honestly, after seeing Santorum being interviewed, both by Jon Stewart and by George Stephanopoulos, I truly don’t know how anyone is going to take him too seriously.
August 4th, 2005 at 8:15 pmHe’s obviously not living in the same world as most of the rest of us.
Santorum’s comment about the nuclear family is such revisionist idiocy. Traditional families are ‘clans’, where extended families rear children. Unless he’s gonna force us to return to tribal clans – his idea about what’s a ‘healthy’ family us just bunk. In fact in my experience a mom, dad and 2 kids living in suburbia is probably the most dysfunctional and impaired family unit I’ve ever seen! Children who are raised with single parents in an apartment building where parents cooperate are much better adjusted and better raised from my own personal experience – than those who are isolated and raised on video games and just their nuclear family as their primary socialization.
The nuclear family has created too many dip$hits like Santorum who are under socialized and overly confident relative to their skills and/or intelligence.
August 4th, 2005 at 8:53 pmBush is working hard to bring about the age of the post-nuclear family.
August 4th, 2005 at 11:12 pmCynical,
I agree. It actually takes a whole community! CONservative suburbanites all love their gated community surrounded by people that never challenge them or force them to get real. This is so sad, but not unexpected. I blame suburbanizing of the nation with an increase in CONservativism. In an urban environment you have no choice but to learn to get along with different people. But in the TV generation where people hide in their houses (unfortunately this is now too common in urban environments as well), people never learn to properly socialize. You get folks who are social skills deficient like the stupid freepers that come to post here. They’re all ignorance and fear…
August 4th, 2005 at 11:21 pmDamn Brian, you look like you think for yourself too much, they don’t like it if you miss a goose step. I know you don’t care for me anymore than Ryan and the guy who feels the need to post under a new name every other post, but you see it don’t you? You see the disconnected from reality that many of these people have. By the arrangement you have with your wife you prove you know Santorum has a point here, kids are screwed if they are raised by strangers and the TV, it’s that simple. Kerry’s wife showed what most libs think about stay at home mothers when she put her foot in her mouth discussing Laura Bush, even though she didn’t know Laura had jobs outside the home. Motherhood is the most important job there is, simple as that, now that’s not to say mothers can’t work, or should have to hide under a burka when they leave the house, but anyone who can’t see the difference between what Santorum is talking about and the taliban shooting women in a soccer stadium for the crime of being raped, well to be honest, I think is either a liar or insane. Honor killings Vs. wanting to strengthen the family, yeah just the same, if you are a nut. I don’t really care for Santorum but the guy is right about this, somebody’s got to raise children, Mom or dad I don’t care, but not the TV. By the way, as a recovered liberal I want to add I feel like I have more latitude to disagree with others in conservative circles than I ever did in liberal circles. Now let the name calling begin!
August 5th, 2005 at 12:18 amSantorum’s harmless. He’s about as scary as a one-guy protest. (Unless of course that one guy is a suicide bomber, but let’s not get into that)
August 5th, 2005 at 12:49 amSantorum contributes to the difficulties for mothers to stay at home.
In March 2005, Santorum voted against an amendment that would have increased the minimum wage by another $2.10 over the course of 28 months.
But feeling the political heat as another election draws near, Santorum tossed his own proposal to increase the minimum wage on the table – but one that would exempt up to 10 million workers from coverage by minimum wage and overtime laws and would even prohibit local and state governments from raising the base pay for employees receiving tips. [Outback Steakhouse is a large Santorum contributor, and Santorum flew to Florida to 'pay respects to' Terry Schiavo on a Wal-Mart jet.]
As the Economic Policy Institute explained, Santorum’s minimum wage proposal was really a “Trojan Horseâ€? threatening workers — it’s about as good for working people as Bush’s “Clear Skiesâ€? initiative is for our air quality. Here’s why:
Santorum would exempt all businesses with revenues between $500,000 and $1 million per year from the Fair Labor Standards Actâ€â€allowing them to disregard worker protection laws such as the minimum wage and overtime pay.
August 5th, 2005 at 12:50 amAnd Santorum would eliminate the 40-hour workweek, allowing companies to require employees to work more than 40 hours per week without paying overtime.
Santorum makes me long for the good old days: when families were made up of 8 or 10 hungry kids, the wife was little more than a nonvoting slave, a man could go home and beat hell out of his wife after a 16 hour day at the plant busting his onions for low wages, and the sabbath was full of words about hellfire and brimstone.
Must be those Republican “ethics” welling up inside me.
August 5th, 2005 at 1:15 amSantorum is a Pharisee and a Saducee and a whited seplechure (sp)
August 5th, 2005 at 1:16 amFascismBreedsIgnorance,
Actually kids get screwed up when the parents do pay attention to them when they get home. There have been lots of studies about how day care and other multi-child socializations actually improve the health of children – but then again you always are wrong on all topics you discuss, so why should this one be any different?
Anyway, the problem is that the nuclear family doesn’t spend enough time socializing with children, and they don’t socialize their kids well enough with other kids. Instead TV and video games are used to babysit so the parents can be stupid couch potatoes. Day care and other ’strangers raising your kids’ is actually more healthy than an absent mom and/or dad in the next room. They do much more damage than good, while day care generally does more good than damage…
FBA, You should pick up some parenting books sometime, since you’re a CONservative, it’s a safe bet you were raised in a terribly dysfunctional (and probably abusive, even if you won’t admit it like daddie’s good little boy) household. Learning what’s actually good for children might help you to not pass on this social disease of yours!
August 5th, 2005 at 3:17 amIf anyone wants to know what’s destroying society, it’s men like this.
http://blondesense.blogspot.com/2005/08/man-kills-wife-after-sex-she-wanted-to.html
This guy killed his wife because she wanted to cuddle! Men with FBA’s cavalier attitude of womens rights, claiming they have no right to an abortion even after rape breeds this sort of ‘women are slaves’ mentality. FBA, this cretin is one of your brothers – I hope you’re proud!
August 5th, 2005 at 3:28 amoldamericancentury.org
Don’t go there if…
August 5th, 2005 at 6:16 amyou’ve got a bad heart or, like me, you’re mentally unstable.
:
Ryan,
August 5th, 2005 at 7:43 amYou don’t have kids. Happy kids are naturally social.
Happy stay-at-home parents also socialize with their kids. You’re not helping.
Bad parents raise bad kids. And even a 1.5 year old will let you know when it is time to leave them alone so they can explore their world on their own.
#27
August 5th, 2005 at 7:48 amBush is a Pharisee. Santorum is misguided. If Santorum loved kids he wouldn’t take them churches full of sex criminals on Saturday night.
Mom or dad I don’t care, but not the TV.
O’Rielly For Kids is how t raise kids. Let Bill do it. I think FBA has a dog eared copy, even though he has no kids.
August 5th, 2005 at 9:53 amMaybe if people could keep the 15% of their income that is taken for the forced collectivist social security and medicare programs, both parents wouldn’t have to work. They could set aside half of that and still have a safe retirement.
Also, Islamic radicals threaten to or actually inflict harm on women trying to break free. Rick is not suggesting any law or punishment for women who work outside the home; rather, he is suggesting they volutarily consider staying at home is more valuable to family. Apples and oranges.
August 5th, 2005 at 10:44 amMaybe if people could keep the 15% of their income that is taken for the forced collectivist social security and medicare programs, both parents wouldn’t have to work. They could set aside half of that and still have a safe retirement.
Except that they’d have to pay corporations to provide schools, roads, police protection, and a whole lot of other things, which would end up being far more expensive than having government do it.
August 5th, 2005 at 11:08 amGary, um, I was talking only about the social security and medicare payroll taxes.
August 5th, 2005 at 11:22 amGary, um, I was talking only about the social security and medicare payroll taxes.
I stand corrected. But in that case your assertion that “They could set aside half of that and still have a safe retirement” is utterly ridiculous. 7% of minimum wage doesn’t amount to much, certainly nowhere near enough to buy health coverage in today’s market without any sort of group plan and when you’re considered a high risk for being a senior citizen.
Besides which, and not that it really affects your argument either way, but you are dishonest in counting the employer contribution as part of an employee’s income.
August 5th, 2005 at 11:47 am“Rick is not suggesting any law or punishment for women who work outside the home; rather, he is suggesting they volutarily consider staying at home is more valuable to family.”
That is exactly what the radical muslims say. Women wear beekeeper suits voluntarily to show their humility before Allah. Staying under male control is more valuable to family. And the women love it! What could be better than piety?
I’m sure Rick would concede that *some* social pressure would help facilitate this utopia.
August 5th, 2005 at 12:59 pm#35,36 37
August 5th, 2005 at 3:38 pmSoc. Sec. to the individual is 6.15% with 1.5% being for Medicare. The total 7.65% is matched by the employer.
SS is intended as a national contribution for the welfare of the least of us, so that a minimal level of existence would be provided. Before SS, most old folks died, or went to “poor houses” or (gasp!) moved in with their children because they never earned enough to save for the day when they couldn’t work any more. It was a compassionate law.
Frankly, I would carry it a step further and provide national health care, taking THAT burden off the employer. But as long as we are spending $200 billion a year in Iraq, and Halliburton, Bechtel, and the other defense contractors are making money hand over fist – as long as the rich continue to get their tax cuts and keep their multi-million dollar estates, tax free, we will not be able to afford it.
Which brings me around to what the Republicans have in mind in the first place: Dismantle social programs, damn the poor, the sick, and the kids, keep more money in their own pockets and eliminate the middle class.
One more thing… Has anyone ever explained what happened to 8.8 BILLION lost by the CPA in Iraq? All they ever say is it’s in the bookkeeping.
August 5th, 2005 at 3:39 pmSocial Security is an insurance fund – that’s where CONservatives go wrong in their thinking. Just because you never have an accident, doesn’t mean you get your money back. If you earn more money, then the ‘risk’ of having to pay you more money is greater, and therefore the dues should be greater.
And then there’s always the fact that those who benefit financially from cheap labor (rich people) have the highest obligation to society to take care of those who can’t.
August 5th, 2005 at 4:11 pmThe majority of men who are physically, sexually, and emotionally abusive is staggering. Add alcoholism and drug abuse to that. Add to that generations of being raised to think of children as a burden and a hinderence on freedom. Add to that being raised to think it’s okay and manly to break your promises and cheat on your wife (most marriages end due to infidelity–and not the wife’s). Add to that most men seem about as mature and responsible as 16-year-olds. Add to that just plain old anti-intellectualism of American society.
Yeah, it’s the feminists fault, all right.
August 6th, 2005 at 9:51 amIt wasn’t feminist ideology that forced most mothers into the workforce, it was economics. But now, even with 2 incomes, families barely scrape by. If Rick really wanted to see more parents home with their kids he would support living wage ammendments, health insurance for everyone, and afford college rates.
August 6th, 2005 at 1:03 pmIf you want to beat the right wing at its own game you have to resort to their tactics,which makes you one of them,propegating their bullshit philosophy-hence they win again.How do you fight a mentality completely devoid of any semblance of decency?By ignoring it.We as human beings need to step back and not get drawn into their petty little game of tit for tat.They are showing their true colors as they know their time is running out-the angrier they make the opposition, the better the chance of flummoxing them into making irrational statements, invalidating their point of view.This is the standard reptilican strategy-and it works.I know it’s damn hard not to respond in kind to their ridiculous arguments,but they are doing a damn fine job of assasinating their own characters-all we need to do is sit back and watch them self-destruct.
August 7th, 2005 at 1:30 pmNothing pisses a reptilican off more than ignoring them.It diffuses their self rightousness and deflates their self importance and relegates them to their proper position in life-the village idiot mired in the past.They just discovered water on Mars people-and anyone with half a brain knows that where there’s water, there’s life.When the rover finds the evidence
of past life on mars,the reptilican belief system will
collapse under its own fallacy-and they know it.Hence 911 and their desperate push to conquer all access to information to try and diffuse the truth before it’s too late.They’re on borrowed time folks-science is their enemy and science is the focus of their war.If they can generate enough fear in the populace,science
takes a back seat to the natural human instinct to circle the wagons and distrust your neighbor-the ol divide and conquer routine.The beauty of it is that they are digging their own graves and are too arrogant to see it,being drunk on their power the way they are.
You gotta love reptilican arrogance-they are as predictable as the tide.Use it against them!
23: “Motherhood is job”?! Where does that come from? Who told you that? What on earth are you talking about? and why? Read this closely: motherhood is the result of giving birth; giving birth is the result of a biological function. Tell you what. Make it a job, pay her for her labor and all that follows. Establish a permanent national surtax so that each woman who bears a child will be paid adequately for the health and well being of the offspring. Pay her in Mommascript so the money is spent as it should be. Then call it a job. And, gee, if you were just kidding when you wrote that, I take it all back.
August 13th, 2005 at 6:12 pmCool site! I’ll be back. Astonishing is feature of Standard Chips: http://movies.go.com/ , Table will Corner unconditionally when Table Compute Plane Make , Table will TV unconditionally Universal is feature of Standard Gnome
December 4th, 2005 at 3:05 pm