When I cast my vote for Barack Obama, I admit to a certain amount of bandwagoning, and not a little political masturbation. I imagined our fresh, young, muscly president mounting the podium in Congress on his first day and proceeding to rip assholes left and right, like a blind Incredible Hulk at an orgy. Against gay marriage? “You’re a curmudgeonly old bigot,” Barry would lay it out, street like, and fix the bullshit laws. Slave to lobbyists? “You’re a friggin’ traitor, and your votes won’t count until you shed the corporate weight.” Just firing off the shocker left and right with his other two arms. Are you drafting laws in the face of scientific fact like global warming and evolution? “Hey, from now on, asshole, we listen to experts, and not greedy dumbfucks with something to gain.” Spewing hyperbolic, partisan doomsday language on either side of the isle? “I order you to smoke two joints a day until you learn to calm the fuck down.”
... also, if you don´t like Ween, there´s something seriously wrong with you.
The big climax would come when he said, “Just because you have an opinion doesn’t mean it deserves any credence.” Just splooging rationalism all over the front rows of the gallery like the sexiest Gallagher show ever. Money shot. Sometimes, if I had trouble getting to philosophical nirvana, I’d have him throw in something about how European Socialism is pretty neat, and that, no, in fact, he’s not a Muslim, he’s an atheist. “Can’t do nothin’ about it now, sucka. I already got the keys!”
Since then, even though pundits love to call Obama a radical secular leftist with no concern for process, he’s been everything but what we elected him to be. If you seriously think Obama is radical, you should see the alternate universe where he actually did what we hired him to do. In the model we know, not so much as a stern admonishing, let alone the plethora of epithets he was supposed to spray our lesser officials with like a Tommy Gun with ´fucks´ for bullets. A relative failure for many of us godless liberals. Until this last glorious month.
‘Round about January 20th, Obama unveiled a new spectacular plan. Opponents of the plan, in some of my favorite hyperbolic hyperventilating since the Kentucky Gaga scare of 2010, call it The Mandate, a tongue-in-cheek reference to some Ed Wood scandalizer schlock – - oh, wait, they’re serious. Even better.
In short, The Mandate required all employers with comprehensive health
In other words, FUCK YA, OBAMA!
care options, even those with spiritual affiliation, to offer actual comprehensive health care options. Meaning, of course, the Catholics would no longer be allowed to deny their women legal, scientifically proven, safe contraceptive and family planning care because of their silly superstitions. Also, they would have to offer “abortifacients,” which is one of those words that isn’t a real word that religious people use.
This was it! This was the kind of thing Obama supporters had been waiting almost four years for! Not only was a stunning blow struck for progressive ideals, the rights of workers and women, it was a very directed, very specific, very saucy “Fuck You Very Much” to a very vocal opponent of those rights. And, oh, how the bitches squealed!
“A violation of constitutionally granted religious freedoms!” They cried. “It is the difference between pluralism and anti-clericalism,” they mentioned, rather cryptically. (Washington Post)
This is what you sound like.
No, it is the difference between subjectivity and entitlement. Trust us, you´ll know anti-clericalism when we express it. See, organizations that represent St. Mary’s Hospital and Notre Dame and the like think these places should be allowed to exist in the work-sphere without having to play by the rules any other employer, say Staples or NASA, would be subjected to. In no other place would that be tolerated. For example:
“Second grader Billy Hicks takes his dumps in the corner of the classroom, even though the rest of the class must use the toilets down the hall like civilized human beings. He is granted this unhygienic exception because he sincerely believes turd goblins will crawl up his poop chute if he poops anywhere else but the corner of the classroom. Nothing you can say will convince him otherwise, and the constitution grants religious freedom, so everyone has to watch him pop a squat and lives with the smell for the rest of the day. Every day.” (Me)
See, this is not a constitutional religious freedom issue by any stretch of the imagination, except those imaginations that can stretch so far as to think shitting in a corner is objectively crazy, but their religious ideas are rational to anyone but themselves. No, this is an issue of religious exceptionalism. To some people, the two concepts are entirely inseparable. Religious freedom, by any sane definition, means no one has the right to infringe on your personal ability to worship as you choose. Just so. But religious exceptionalism means thinking that Billy Hicks is being oppressed when teacher finally loses her shit and demands he crap in the toilet so the rest of the class isn’t subjected to his particular brand of disgusting crazy. How dare she? Get the lawyers!
Religious exceptionalism also means that your religious ideas – those with no basis in scientific fact or reason, because that is what makes them religious – should be imposed on those who do not share them. It is a huge problem in America now, but one the Catholics would like to see amplified. Like this quote:
“By its decision, the Obama administration has failed to show the same respect for the consciences of Catholics and others who object to treating pregnancy as a disease.”
Hyperbolically, this is a successful sentence. Babies as a disease? Perish the thought! Subjectively, by Catholic logic, those who work to avoid pregnancy are treating it like a disease, so again, a successful English sentence. Objectively – that is empirically – we are not, and so this quote is absolute bullshit. Scientifically, contraception does not even involve pregnancy, and most scientists agree next-day abortion cannot be considered murder. Pregnancy is not a disease, but it is often inconvenient, and sometimes incredibly dangerous, and there are ways to do away with it or avoid it altogether. I say “empirically,” because we can again prove the bullshit scientifically simply by your average Catholic’s reaction to a hypothetical scenario.
“You, Every Day Catholic, develop eyeball tumors, and modern medical science can get rid of them pretty easily. If you don’t get the surgery, you will die, and be dead for at least 18 years. But you work for a Cancerist company, and their religious belief states that those tumors are in their natural habitat and should be allowed to develop naturally.” (Me again)
Is there any scenario in which you would allow us to make you keep those tumors in your skull? If you think that is ridiculous, look in the mirror, you clown. Religious exceptionalists confuse their feelings of entitlement with religious freedom, because they can’t imagine something to be a “freedom” if it doesn’t come with perks that other people don’t have. In the case of the Billy Hicks and the Eyeball Tumors hypotheticals, these people would tell you that these things are unrealistic, silly, and not worth the effort of discussing. Which is exactly the way other people feel about their beliefs, so what they are really talking about is CHRISTIAN FREEDOM, not religious freedom. Which of course equals Christian Exceptionalism. An appropriate quote from last night´s The Daily Show:
"You have confused a war on your religion with not always getting what you want."
Another example:
There would have been no controversy at all if President Obama had simply exempted religious institutions and ministries. But the administration insisted that the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s Hospital be forced to pay for the privilege of violating their convictions.
Super heady vocabulary, yet again. They use this kind of language to disguise the fact they have no point other than that they are more special than other Americans. All Obama had to do was make it completely unfair, and the Catholics wouldn´t feel so violated.
... but first call a doctor
See, the opposing arguments rely on different interpretations of the “freedom of religion” the poor oppressed Christians are bemoaning the loss of. One way of interpreting the clause in this context says that every woman should have the right to treat her “family way” by the dictates of her own spiritual beliefs. Or lack of beliefs concerning the issue. The other method of mangling “freedom of religion” is to blatantly say that a religious organization is free to infringe on the Constitutional rights of individuals. There’s no way every employee of massive organizations like Notre Dame is Catholic. What about their “freedom of religion,” which compared to your demands is pretty light? They just want freedom from your religion.
No, you are being “forced to pay for the privilege” of being an employer in the United States. You wouldn’t have to pay for shit if you didn’t want to operate as a legitimate US business, but since you do, you have to follow the rules. Your individual freedom to pray, eat magic crackers, and not have abortions is perfectly intact. Your ability to take others’ freedoms away is not.
“Obama chose to substantially burden a religious belief, by the most intrusive means, for a less-than-compelling state purpose — a marginal increase in access to contraceptives that are easily available elsewhere.”
Now you’re just pulling words out of your ass, and putting them together in a sentence. Contraceptives aren’t easily available for the “marginal” people who are benefitting from The Mandate, are they? They can’t get them because they can’t afford them because you want to keep it from them. That “marginal” increase is for the “marginal” people you have chosen to oppress. We only made anti-slave laws to protect the margins of society that were slaves. “Well, if they want the pill, they don’t have to work for us,” you’ll say. We’ll get to that, keep your Scapulars on.
“[Under Obama´s administration] serving the poor and healing the sick are regarded as secular pursuits — a determination that would have surprised Christianity’s founder.”
Yeah, if Jesus Christ MD was a title earned after ten years of medical school and internships, you might squeak by with a point. But in The Gospel of Matthew: The Goblet of Magic Merlot, Jesus zapped the sick out of people with mutant god powers. Christ was many awesome things, but he was no scientist. Medicine is a secular pursuit because a priest can’t lay hands on a chick and cure her cold, let alone take care of her pregnancy problem. But way to throw “concern for the poor” in there. How, exactly, are you helping the poor by denying working women their rights, fuck stick? Sit the fuck down.
ANYWAY…
…go Obama, right?! Not only doing the rational, humanist thing for the benefit of all, and completely avoiding all constitutional quagmires, but giving the enemies of freedom the Finger In Chief in the deal? Genius!
Yeah, until Obama backed down, and made another of his fabled, pussy “compromises.”
Administration officials stated that a woman’s insurance company “will be required to reach out directly and offer her contraceptive care free of charge. The religious institutions will not have to pay for it.
“Moreover, women will not have to opt in or out; contraceptive care will be part of the basic package of benefits offered to everyone. Contraceptive care will simply be “part of the bundle of services that all insurance companies are required to offer,” said a White House official.” (Jill Stanek)
God. Dammit. You left in all the practical stuff, but took out the “Fuck You”? The “Fuck You In The Ass You Ignorant Cunts!” was the best part!
Still, the compromise is smart, I admit petulantly. Pretty much covers the bases. Insurance companies are required to offer free contraception to all employees, which works out for them, because the pill costs way less than covering every treatment a preggers woman needs. Women retain their basic liberties, and god nuts can rest easy knowing they have had no part in these women going straight to Hell. The uneasy peace can resume, the rumble can be postponed for another day, Riff.
No zip guns and no Egyptian scourges, you stinkin´ PR
Then again, just like all 1950s singing and dancing street gangs had a few loose cannons that made shit go all Shakespeare on everyone involved, the Catholics aren’t satisfied to not hate. See, Satan’s work is still being done, even if they have nothing to do with it, so their religious freedom is still somehow being trampled upon like the nuts of a foot-fetishist priest by an altar boy. Look at Jill Stanek’s headline:
Contraceptive “compromise” worse than original mandate: Eliminates any exceptions
Let us stop mowing around the landing strip on this and move straight to mons town. I have a theory about what’s really going on around here, a theory we’ll call the “Homeless Man Shitting On His Own Half-Eaten Garbage Chalupa Hypothesis.” It can be illustrated by the following image:
Aw, yeah, that´s a big Chalupa grunter.
Say a hobo won the bum lottery and discovered half of a once-delicious Taco Bell Chalupa in a dumpster, but he already had a dead cat for breakfast at 6pm and he’s watching his weight, so he needs to save it for later. Tough challenge ever since the increase in homeless people since the banks started running the country. Animal instincts kick in, hordes of disenfranchised zombies sense a snack has been found, and they’re circling. Any moment now, the enemy will swarm down upon the hobo’s dumpster, and there’s no way he’ll be able to keep the crusty, flaky, slightly moldy deliciousness. Now imagine the hobo doesn’t particularly hate the taste of his own fecal matter. (Me, the last one, proimise)
The jackpot for many religious institutions would be the ability to only hire their own people. Makes sense. How can you keep a sterile Catholic hospital environment when you have a bunch of stinky Buddhists scurrying about, rummaging around inside of people? How can you teach kids about where we all came from six thousand years ago if you let a bunch of atheist scientists spew facts willy nilly all over your little Arian acolytes? Problem is, we have these seriously inconvenient anti-discrimination laws, and technically you’re not supposed to 86 a candidate from a job interview for being differently affiliated, spiritually speaking. The only way to get what you want is through the back door. Literally.
"Ah, so kind of like my episode "Galaxy´s Child" in which I "spoiled the milk" for the entity feeding off the Enterprise´s energy - -"
Shut up, LaForge! See, the Catholics won’t have to take part in any PR-damaging discrimination if they shit on their own Chalupa. If I were a woman, I wouldn’t take a job at, say, Notre Dame, because I’d want my health insurance to offer me all legal, effective medical treatments available in the US in some form or another. I wouldn´t want prayers to fix a treatable ailment. The Catholics wouldn’t want my heathen, fetus munching ass either. Outside of the shitty job market I’d be thrown into,* the only real losers in this scenario are the kids who miss out on the best candidate to be their professor, because I am a fucking genius, even as a woman.
Finish us off, Jill Stanek:
Furthermore, and just as importantly, it isn’t enough to (supposedly) exempt religious institutions from the contraception mandate. That is to say only people of faith are allowed to have, or are capable of, consciences. What about secular conscientious objectors?
Did anyone else just pitch a petit mal when they read that? What about the hell-bound godless heathens we can use to swell our numbers this one time? You know before we can gloat over their damned, worthless souls again. The godless fucks “capable of having consciences” about this one issue? Don’t count on them for allies after you just took a whiz on their pizza, you condescending taint munch.
*I don´t want to belabor the point, but think about our already crappy job market. Now, think about what would happen if the few remaining employers were allowed to make it completely uncomfortable for anyone but their own kind to work for them. Sound American to you?
They are in love, they make fulfilling, passionate, incredibly careful whoop, and they are going to be parents.
Nuggets For Sluts Outreach Initiative
New Feature: A soundtrack to enhance your reading experience. Just open the link in another tab on your browser and enjoy the totally relevant song whilst enjoying the article. Today’s soudtrack.
Hunny, the men are talking. Steak and BJ Day (ladies) is right around the corner. Maybe you should be loosening your jaw, or practicing char vs. warm pinkness ratio (sweet, that actually works both ways). You can throw the practice steaks to homeless people if you want, hippie. We got you that nice sheer dressing gown for V-day. You liked that right? What the hell do women of child-bearing age even know about contraception anyway? God gave us male politicians so you don’t have to hurt yourself with thinking.
Your turn, Rushizzle. Tell the bitch.
Snnnnnap. Put that one in the Quotables book next to “Four Score and a Hundred Bimbos Ago.” Look, Rush wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t feed his brand of put-Howard-Stern-to-shame shock trutherificness. Still, a bunch of oversensitive liberal snatches had to take the bait and get all butt-hurt about some bitch they never even met.
Oh, a Roundheel, eh? Cool it, daddy-o! You paper shaker from squaresville. Supposin´ I was to call you a cube. Now I´m all frosted. I have a mind to give you a bunch of fives!
Well, maybe he’s not a fat piece of shit. He’s feculently rotund.
I’m just joshin’ ya, Rush. Just because you’re a significantly out of touch old dude who’s made it with a bunch of bitches yourself doesn’t disinclude you from calling women who might want to be safe having passion partners ‘sluts’ in a charming Cunningham manner. Beatnicks, too, amirite? You should be grateful he bothered to lift his commandingly journalistic walrus jowls from the pancake batter bowl long enough to amend the statement from the modernly offensive. That was a gift.
Despite Rush’s right – - dare I say it, his duty – - to voice the contents of his superior mind, I have to say he was perfectly right to be so charitable and amend his statement. College girls are at University to put out, so the young men can destress and focus as much as possible on their important studies. Cake making classes are there to give them something constructive to do while the latter occurs. So you can’t really call her a slut for not wanting to have a litter of bastard pups before she is married off.
Do you even have the time for all that? Whatever happened to good old American FAST food?
Now that’s a slut. Paying attention, Limbaugh? Ain’t no babies coming out of blowies for McNuggets, just goopy fake-chicken diarrhea. I bet she’s not even intending to procreate. Well not properly anyway: you’ll notice the “Ms” prefix on Khath – - Kadjoak – - on her name.
That’s why I’m introducing the “Nuggets for Sluts Outreach Initiative.” Give the misguided young lady a McNugget, fella. There’s always that extra deformed one that decency and the hellish screams of your tortured stomach won’t allow you to finish anyway! If you’re feeling generous, dip into Wendy’s. It won’t cost you much, and they claim to use the pollo genuine article.
Don’t get me wrong, a hummer from a black chick is totally worth a box of McNuggets: they got them long snake tongues God gave ‘em for fornicating on the Ark. A curse and a blessing; the Lord works in mysterious ways. But is it worth the risk of breaking the law at the drive thru? Leave the greasy carboard remains of your dinner on the dresser like a decent whoremonger. Gosh.
Just another slut who wants to get pounded hourly and dispose of the inconvenient, god-given consequence
I bet you would, Judy. I bet you would. Folks, I am providing you with the good Senator’s mailing address, because this is a woman in desperate need of nugget charity.
At the very least, it will give her mouth something to do while the good ole boys decide how our mothers, sisters, and daughter may legally use their bodies.