I've noticed a common thread among how the GOP seems to be treating all of their culture war issues. Short version: they're cowards that welcome the death of others. To use a term from the character Benny from Fallout: New Vegas, they're finks.
Allow me to explain: every major culture war issue they've been pushing for the last couple decades has had to do with things that reduce deaths due to exposure, starvation, overdose, and suicide. In all of those cases, the GOP tries to legislate the things that help reduce those deaths out of existence, but claims the likely resulting deaths are a completely unrelated phenomenon.
Let's go through examples.
First, and a very old one, the war on drugs. The GOP loves to legislate drug users into criminality, claiming it's for their own good and the good of society, but they generally refuse to hold major drug dealers in the USA, like pharmaceutical companies, remotely responsible for the deaths they've caused, and they ignore both the causes and effects of drug use. The GOP has raised barriers to access mental health services, most notably by increasing the barriers between veterans and the mental health services they need, all while claiming that it's about "fiscal responsibility."
In recent years, the GOP has taken to attacking programs and policies proven to reduce deaths due to overdose and other drug abuse related conditions, like clean injection sites, increased funding for psychological treatment of addiction disorder, etc. They don't want to help those people, but they'll claim that the people who die as a result of the lack of access to these programs are the only ones at fault.
Second, let's look at LGBTQ+ rights. Every success to secure LGBTQ+ rights has resulted in a (sometimes temporary) drop in LGBTQ+ suicides. Gay marriage bans killed people, bans on gender affirming care will kill people, anti-sodomy laws killed people. The GOP doesn't care, because they want the control, they think that they have the right to become the arbiter of morality and those that don't align with their preconceived notions can die for all they care.
Third, let's look at the most recently reborn controversy: abortion. Now, if you know me, you know I don't like abortions. Aside from a few exceptions, I generally consider them most likely immoral. That being said, I do view the issue as an ethical/moral one, not a legal one. God gets to decide what's moral, not our government. You can hate me all you want, but let's explain why.
A ban on abortion alone will not reduce abortions significantly, we've seen that in the past, and we've seen it recently with the latest attempts to ban abortion in the USA. It leads to a temporary drop in abortions followed by an increase in early-term abortions. A complete ban would just result in a higher fatality rate for abortions as they won't be done safely. These are all scientifically and historically verifiable facts.
A truly pro-life solution would require any ban on abortion to be tied to an increase in access to contraceptives, an increase in education spending, and increase in medical care funding for potential parents and children, an increase in social safety nets, and a social campaign to increase adoption after the age of two. None of these are part of the GOP platform, and in fact, most are specifically denied by GOP legislators. Their excuse? "That's a completely different argument."
So since they're not willing to look at these things realistically, to acknowledge that their morality-based legislation is likely to kill people, they're just "letting them" die. And who is most likely to be affected by these bans? The poor, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ+ individuals, etc. People that, according to GOP officials, vote for their opposition.
This isn't a new concept, they're just trying to select their voters so the don't have to face the possibilities of voters not selecting them. They do this by making things related to Democrat policies felonies, like sleeping in a public park (homelessness), providing gender-affirming care to your offspring, being a longer-term victim of human trafficking (they can legally be treated as prostitutes, drug users, and sometimes drug dealers), and in most GOP-run states, you can't vote as a felon, even after you finish your sentence, at least not without jumping through some crazy hoops.
They also like to select their voters through gerrymandering, selecting the requirements for voting to make it easier for those likely to vote GOP to vote (For instance, in Texas you can vote with a handgun license but not with a student ID), and increasing barriers to vote in areas that generally vote against them (reducing polling locations, hours, etc.)
This is just another branch on that same tree; they're trying to select their voters by making it more likely that those who would vote against them don't survive until the next election. They're doing this not only to adults, but to minors, with their policies increasing the suicide rate for LGBTQ+ youth significantly. They won't take the time to actually look them in the face before they kill them, and they'll claim it was all the victim's fault, because they're cowards, but make no mistake, at the very least they consider excess deaths to be a reasonable cost for their policies to be put in place.
Even Benny knew better than to do this. To paraphrase "Maybe the GOP-types kill people without looking them in the eye, but I ain't a fink... dig?" Even Benny, who is far from a good person, would have the honor to admit to someone who killed them. When you're worse than Benny, are you really doing the right thing?
That's all for now. God Bless you if you'll let Him, and have an otherwise nice day.
- Draknus
No comments:
Post a Comment