It’s like they can’t help themselves, you know? They open their mouths and egregiously offensive remarks about rape start pouring out:
A Republican congressional candidate says abortion should not be legal, even when it involves “the rape thing,” according to audio provided Wednesday to The Associated Press. An activist working on behalf of liberal group FUSE Washington asked questions of Republican hopeful John Koster during a fundraiser Sunday. Koster said he does not oppose abortion when the life of the mother is in danger but then explains he would oppose it when it involves rape or incest. Koster twice uses the phrase “the rape thing” when describing his views, first saying that he knows a woman who was raped and gave up the child for adoption without any regrets. “But on the rape thing, it’s like, how does putting more violence onto a woman’s body and taking the life of an innocent child that’s a consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?” Koster said in the exchange.
You’d think that with juts a few days to go before the elections these folks would be able to control their idiocy at least somewhat. But no, the hatred of women is so overpowering that they are like an addict in need of a fix. And see the entire, “a woman I know feels this, ergo all women in the universe feel the same thing because women are like robots that respond the same when you press a button”? Woman-hating at its best. I wish somebody asked him if he noticed any difference between women and cell phones. Also note the utter incapacity to process the concept of consent.
Scary shit, folks. Go vote. Keep Koster and Co out of our bodies and our public spaces, too.
Clarissa's Blog 
I found this comment really incredible! It’s as if “the rape thing” is something made up, and never happens to real human beings. Of course in his universe women are not real human beings.
I can’t believe that in the twenty-first century in a first world nation politicians are still debating whether rape is a real thing, and whether women get pregnant from rape.
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That’s exactly how I feel. And it isn’t just one isolated nutcase. These statements from these jerks appear every couple of days!!! Where do these rabid animals come from?
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I’m just constantly amazed that the whole question of abortion is a presidential issue in the US. Why can’t these men just shut the fuck up about something which doesn’t concern them, whose opinions on the subject are unwanted except by other loonies, and who always show themselves up when they open their mouths.
A case of: It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
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I know! We are in the midst of a recession, yet all the Republican Congress has been willing to discuss in the past 2 years is anti-abortion legislation. In the meanwhile, the jobs bill is languishing. Because who cares about unemployment when you can spout nasty stuff about women instead?
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Caring about unemployment is hard and may hurt Big Business. Who wants to be called “a communist”, when it’s much easier to focus on the sure & eternal thing of abortion and take a high (in the eyes of many, unfortunately) moral ground?
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“Caring about unemployment is hard and may hurt Big Business. Who wants to be called “a communist”, when it’s much easier to focus on the sure & eternal thing of abortion and take a high (in the eyes of many, unfortunately) moral ground?”
– Exactly. Now tell me, how come you live on a different continent yet understand this while people who are living right here don’t have a clue?
It is very stressful to sit here and wait to see whether the fanatics will come to power yet again.
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\\ Why can’t these men just shut the fuck up about something which doesn’t concern them
Because it does concern them, meaning the number of votes they’ll get. Those “rabid animals” derive their support from the powerful groups of US Christians, which will vote for them, as long as the politicians are anti-abortion, as required. I don’t believe they’re as in the fringes as one could understand from reading only this post. Doesn’t make sense.
The only way for it to change is by changing the voters. Good education. And, not less important, diminishing role of religion.
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There are only 11% of Evangelical fanatics in this country, yet they are keeping all of us hostage. This needs to stop. The entire political discourse in this country is completely poisoned by these creatures. They are involving us all in completely idiotic discussions of their outrageous “beliefs.” In the meanwhile, nothing gets resolved in terms of the economy, education, jobs, etc.
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Only 11%?? Clarissa, I hope the number of evangelical Christians is that small, but I would like to see your sources. If you had asked me to guess, i would have said maybe 40%.
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Sorry, I made a mistake. It’s 15%. Which is still a small minority. They couldn’t bring their candidate to the nomination either in these elections or in 2008.
“About 15% of the electorate in the United States supports the Christian right.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right#Electoral_activity
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“There are only 11% of Evangelical fanatics in this country, yet they are keeping all of us hostage.”
The people who support religious wrong always vote. This i why their clout is especially significant in local elections, where there is minuscule turnout. How else do you think so many creationists and theocrats end up controlling school boards (Dover trial, anyone?)
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“The people who support religious wrong always vote. This i why their clout is especially significant in local elections, where there is minuscule turnout.”
– I know. If their is one thing that can be admired about them is their dedication to their cause. We need to match their passion with our own!
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“Those ‘rabid animals’ derive their support from the powerful groups of US Christians, which will vote for them, as long as the politicians are anti-abortion, as required.
As Libby Anne as mentioned in her Raised Evangelical series (referring to a book), many evangelicals are also opposed to evolution, homosexuality, and environmentalism. It’s possible that those factors are also important.
And I can think of a few more:
(1) Unconditional support for Israel. The religious wrong does this for anti-Semitic reasons. They want all Jews to go to Israel so Jesus can come back and enact the tribulation rapture, killing them all if they don’t convert. To the RW, Jews are merely pawns to bring about the end of the world.
(2) Opposition to the strawman of “socialism”. I have no idea whether this is because they are still opposed to atheistic communism and the socialism that goes with it and are therefore still fighting the cold war, whether they see government social services as a challenge to churches providing charitable assistance to people in need (conditional on the recipient converting), whether they wish to weaken the government enough so that it is not able to challenge them and provide a counterweight to their authoritarian tendencies (eg civil rights, etc), or whether it is due to some combination of these and other factors.
I believe that those six factors probably explain much of the RW’s political positions and voting patterns.
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I think that the main problem is that these people are pathologically incapable of understanding why these remarks are offensive. But for goodness sake, you’d think that by this point, when it comes to rape, they would just learn to keep their fucking mouths shut.
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They can’t control this. The hatred is pouring out of them in an avalanche.
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In Australia, we had a talk show host of the Rush Limbaugh ilk, who misspoke by asserting that women in power were “destroying the joint”. So, now there is an Internet lobby group that sets out to persuade his advertisers to withdraw. I even wore a “destroy the joint” button at the Reclaim the Night festivities.
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http://unsanesafe.blogspot.com.au/2012/11/destroy-that-which-destroys-you.html
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I am gobsmacked!
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Everyone in my ceramics class is voting Romney and the teacher is invited to the inauguration.
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Please accept my most sincere condolences on having to survive in such an environment. I feel for you, my friend.
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P.S. They say that I ought to not vote, or that I should leave the country if I am serious about people like Obama or further left. Voting Obama is un-American, because he is a socialist. If he wins, I will come to regret it, because I will sustain permanent harm at his hands.
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I just saw a video that convinced me that these Romney supporters really do believe in improving something as indistinct as an “atmosphere”. They feel the air is oppressive, that there might be drones in it, spying on them, because they have a black president.
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Ah, but atmosphere is the reason I am voting Obama! I do not really support that many of his policies but I prefer a country not run by a complete wingnut (Romney) and that does not fear to have a Black president!
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“Ah, but atmosphere is the reason I am voting Obama! I do not really support that many of his policies but I prefer a country not run by a complete wingnut (Romney) and that does not fear to have a Black president!”
– I can’t vote but I feel exactly the same.
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The video is traumatic because the people in it resemble too many of my students, and this is after hours!!!
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They should get to a gym and aerate their brains.
Yes, (on the other note), the president does set the tone for the kind of treatment you can expect to receive in the society at large. When we had right-wing male leaders, the misogyny around was hard to survive.
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I turned the video off on the 25 second mark after I saw an idiot say that Bush was a good president. There is nothing anybody can say to such people. They are not mentally healthy.
And what’s with this “we’ve got to take our country back”? back from whom? or from where?
Blethering fools.
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It can be interesting to watch a train wreck. Unfortunately the overweight and uneducated Americans will probably destroy the cultural possibilities in Australia, too, since we are a US satellite, much like Zimbabwe is.
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“since we are a US satellite”
– Seriously?
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Culturally and politically we have a 50 percent dependency structure.
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And here goes my plan B of moving to Australia if things get too bad here.
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I am in Australia and prefer the most powerful position in the world to be filled by other than a wingnut.
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The last one inflicted two wars and a global economic crisis on the world so I know what you mean.
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This is slightly off the suubject but did you know that in the late 60’s and early 70’s evangelicals were actually pro-choice? I just read that in an article this morning and it shocked me! How can something change that much in only 40-50 years??
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Yes, this was back when they actually read the Bible.
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Every time I think that Republicans can’t get any crazier they come up with something even more over top. Have you heard this one?
“As Hurricane Sandy blasts the eastern seaboard just over a week before Election Day, a number of conspiracy theorists have decided President Barack Obama engineered the mega-storm to secure his re-election.”
http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/washington-whispers/2012/10/29/conspiracy-theorists-say-obama-engineered-hurricane-sandy
And these are the folks that are neck and neck with Obama?
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