Shannon Love

Slicing Spinal Cords With Scissors

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[Sorry for any typos. I was a bit upset and hurried.]

I’m mostly pro-choice but this horrific story demonstrates just how utterly extreme and insane the left in general and the Democrat party in particular have become on the matter of abortion:

A doctor whose abortion clinic was described as a filthy, foul-smelling “house of horrors” that was overlooked by regulators for years was charged Wednesday with murder, accused of delivering seven babies alive and then using scissors to kill them.
 
…
 
He “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord,” District Attorney Seth Williams said.
 
Gosnell referred to it as “snipping,” prosecutors said.
 
Prosecutors estimated Gosnell ended hundreds of pregnancies by cutting the spinal cords, but they said they couldn’t prosecute more cases because he destroyed files.

How could this go on for over 30 years?

State regulators ignored complaints about Gosnell and the 46 lawsuits filed against him, and made just five annual inspections, most satisfactory, since the clinic opened in 1979, authorities said. The inspections stopped completely in 1993 because of what prosecutors said was the pro-abortion rights attitude that set in after Democratic Gov. Robert Casey, an abortion foe, left office.

Again, I am pro-choice but this tragedy occurred because the left violently resisted even the least regulatory oversight of even the most extreme late term abortions. The left has made abortion the highest good that trumps every other concern, and the resulting real-world policies border on the surreal.

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How Many Real Rubes Were There?

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Instapundit says that another rube self-indentifies when linking to a piece about Glenn Greenwald’s anguish over discovering that Obama has endorsed and legitimized most of Bush’s War on Terror policies.

For myself, I wonder how many “rubes” were really out there, especially in the ranks of the big leftwing players. Did Obama and other major leftists ever truly think that Bush’s policies were unnecessary or did they just adopt a position of opposition to differentiate themselves in the political marketplace? Did any of these people oppose Bush’s policies on principle after careful study or did they just see hysterical criticism of Bush as a useful political tool they could use for selfish purposes?

I think it pretty clear that for most leftists, opposition to Bush’s policies was nothing more than cynical, political opportunism.

The Hypocritical Civility of Power

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Why is the left hypocritically pushing so hard for “civility” in our political discourse? Why did they try to use the Tuscon shootings to suppress the passionate expression of non-leftists?

I think the answer is simple: Passionate, sometimes even inflammatory, expression is the tool of the revolutionary not the establishment and today, leftists are the establishment.

Those firmly established within the halls of power speak with calm gravitas because they have no need to stir people into action. Indeed, they wish the opposite, they want the people to slip into apathy so that those in power can govern as they wish. They do not have to motivate supporters with the hope of future benefits. Using the power of the state, they can provide their supporters with immediate real benefits.

Those outside the halls of power need to stir people into action. They need people to rise out apathy and work hard for a change in power. Those outside the halls of power cannot immediately reward their supporters. They can only offer the hope of future benefits. They offer hope by using passionate rhetoric to paint an emotive vision of a better world. Passionate expression is the primary tool for those seeking to upset the establishment.

Forty years ago, the left were the outsiders seeking to impose a collectivist vision on America. Back then, the left supported all free speech no matter how extreme. They succeeded all too well and the leftist leaders of today were the vitriolic outsiders of the ’70s. Now that they are the establishment, they want everything cool and calm. They want the people passive.

Right now, the Tea Party represents the uprising of the long-marginalized American middle class against the leftist establishment. The Tea Party uses the most impassioned expression today because they are the political outsiders. The Tea Party has to phrase its political discourse in intense and passionate terms because they must motivate the people to rise from apathy and take action.

Don’t fall for the left’s hypocritical and opportunistic sudden discovery for the need for civil discourse. We live today in a looking-glass world in which those who call themselves “progressives” fight for the past and established policies while those who call themselves “conservatives” fight for the future and innovation.

If you are fighting for the future, be unashamedly passionate.

Not So Superior Chinese Mothers

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Via Instapundit comes a question in response to Amy Chua’s interesting article on the superiority of Chinese mothers:

Then again, as I said above, one wonders why Asians, if they’ve got things so figured out, need to emigrate to the land of the substandard “Westerner” in order to live prosperously and free.

I think Chua provides the answer herself:

Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:
 
Ӣ attend a sleepover

Ӣ have a playdate

Ӣ be in a school play

Ӣ complain about not being in a school play

Ӣ watch TV or play computer games

Ӣ choose their own extracurricular activities

Ӣ get any grade less than an A

Ӣ not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama
 
Other studies indicate that compared to Western parents, Chinese parents spend approximately 10 times as long every day drilling academic activities with their children. By contrast, Western kids are more likely to participate in sports teams.[emp added]

Noticeably excluded from her children’s activities is any kind of team activities. The secret of American’s collective success as a people is our ability to self-organize ourselves on both the small and large scale into highly effective teams The relative inability to self-organize into teams is why China and some other cultures have lagged behind in the modern world. Americans have long relied on activities like sports, theater, marching band etc to teach that one critical American cultural skill. By excluding such activities from her children’s life, Chua is depriving them of one of the most crucial skills an American must have.

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The Psychology of Political Shooters

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The doors on the ambulances had not even closed before leftists began to blame major non-lefitst figures for the actions of the shooter in Arizona. We shouldn’t be surprised, the “violent mainstream non-leftist” meme has been in the leftwing playbook since it was created by Dick Morris in order to link Republicans to the Oklahoma City bombing.

I know next to nothing about the shooter but let me tell you what his psychology and his political beliefs will turn out to be.

These types of shooters divide into the delusional schizophrenics and the paranoid, narcissistic, borderline or full-blown sociopath.

(Note: A sociopath is a person devoid of empathy for any living creature. Sociopaths are not delusional and they are not psychologically driven to commit crimes or violence, they simply suffer no negative emotional feedback when they choose to do. Most sociopaths are just jerks.)

The shooter’s outward and inward life has been dominated by the disconnect between his perception of his own worth in the world and his real accomplishments.

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