All Things in Moderation

This deserves a thread of its own.

Google the phrase.

1. Top 10 Shocking Attacks from the GOP’s War on Women

   pol.moveon.org/waronwomen/

   Stop the Republican War on Women. Redefining rape. Attacking the right to choose. Belitting victims of violence. The Republicans are on a rampage attacking …

2. War On Women: Republicans Think Male Votes Outweigh The …

   http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/war-on-women-republicans-m…

This is quite clearly a freighted political catchphrase, intended so by sources like MoveOn and HuffPo.  Like the “War on Drugs” and the “War on Terror” it is intended to limit discussion of issues based on impugning motives.  Scott has been trying to make that point.

If we could define the Republican War on Women as the sum of these actions:

a failed conservative move to cut off U.S. government aid to Planned Parenthood + the Komen decision, since reversed + the attempted but failed roll back of contraception under employer health plans + the all male panel called to testify + the G’town student who was called a “slut” by Limbaugh + Santorum’s money guy’s “aspirin between the knees” comment + the vaginal insert sonogram, since abandoned in VA + the R opposition to extending the funding under the Violence against Women Act + personhood laws (thanks, Ashot), we could probably still talk about the cumulation without calling it war.

We could see it as R strategy to appeal to a fundamentalist base, that has become a bolder strategy as more and more of the active voting base of Rs claim fundamentalist religious principles, which often go far beyond the antipathy to abortion that many non-fundamentalists share.  We could see that fundamentalist faith actually does put women in a secondary role – this is true in all the Abrahamic religions.

We could see that some of the individual issues that have been tarred as part of the RWoW don’t derive their impetus from pandering to fundamentalist religion.  For example, some may derive from the desire to cut the budget.

We would not be surprised that moderate women would have no sympathy for any of the items I listed, and would be moving away from the Rs, unless some other set of issues took priority for them.

IMHO,  resisting the shorthand RWoW is worthwhile just in order to keep the issue conversation alive.  I think the same is true of other uses of the word “war” in a catchphrase intended to inflame emotions – like the WoD and the WoT.  It also cheapens the meaning of the word, fwiw.

Filed under: 2012, Planned Parenthood, Republican primary | Tagged: Abortion | 193 Comments »