John McCain is outrageous, what with his putting women’s health IN QUOTES in regards to reasons under which abortion ‘might’ be allowable.

Are you kidding me? Do you think women (who may not even WANT an abortion and may very well want to continue with a pregnancy) are LYING about their life teetering on the brink of existence when they decide (along with their doctor) that an abortion is NECCESARY?

Pregnancy is always risky. So is childbirth. And women are not incubators.

I am so sick of the implication that abortion is somehow always an irresponsible or selfish choice. That, even if an individual is not at a point in their life when she can realistically raise a child, she should still carry it to term and give it up for adoption. Because there are so many families that want a baby, blah blah blah, as if the foster care system is not already overflowing with unwanted kids. There are no words for how much I hate the suggestion that even if you don’t want a baby it’s really not so much of a hardship to carry a parasite for 9 months, that you have the obligation to do so for the poor women who can’t get pregnant.

Yes, abortion is, and probably always will be my pet issue. I have been the scared 17 year old looking up what abortion laws are in her state. Lucky for me, it was a scare and nothing more, but that was one of the longest, scariest 10+ days of my life. If ANYONE had suggested that I have a responsibility or obligation to carry a hypothetical baby to term, just because I was biologically capable of it, I would have flipped out. I was SEVENTEEN, a few days before starting my senior year of high school. And yes, I come from a white, middle class family, and were I to CHOOSE to do so, I would have been healthy and well taken care of.

But incubating a baby for nine months would have screwed up my senior year of high school, a time when one is making choices about their future. If I had been pregnant, I would have had an abortion. No question about it. I would have had an abortion and gone on with my college applications and classes and I don’t think I would have regretted it for an instant. And the thought of having to do that was hard enough. I cannot imagine how difficult it must be for women who ARE pregnant and do not want a baby and choose an abortion. And I certainly cannot imagine how difficult it must be for someone who actually wants to carry a baby to term, but for health reasons, cannot do it, and who MUST have an abortion to save her own life. I cannot imagine how heartbreaking that must be.

And John McCain certainly can’t either.

(During a commercial break)

Jill-IAN: …
Me: I KNOW!
Jill-IAN: That was like…
Me: I know! Why?!??!

Elliot Stabler is still incredibly hot. (Hello shameless camera shot.)  But the latest development in the storyline is completely unacceptable! It totally intrudes on all shipper-ness. I am 14 years old, clearly.

I already knew about the recent approval of the abortion ban in South Dakota, but I didn’t know Mississippi had followed suit. It’s a slow morning at work and I’m actually reading some of the text and there’s this little gem:

… If a rape victim becomes pregnant and bears a child, the rapist could have the same parental rights as the mother, said Krista Heeren-Graber, executive director of the South Dakota Network Against Family Violence and Sexual Assault.

I really don’t know what to say to that. It’s so WTF that I don’t know what to say.

How dare these people call themselves pro-life? That is not pro-life. You think anyone really WANTS to have an abortion? You think us evil woman sit around consciously skipping birth control pills just to stick it to The Man? Abortion isn’t fun and for many it’s difficult and it’s absolutely neccesary. Abortion isn’t anything new. So long as there has been civilization there have been unwanted pregnanices, and woman have always had to find a way to deal with it.

I am very much a “small government” person, and don’t believe in socialized medicine, but if the government is going to create policies that they claim are in the interest of the unborn, they should take responsibility for the consequence of that action. These people ARE NOT PRO-LIFE. They don’t care about the fetus once it exits the womb. They don’t care that they are subjecting women to physical and emotional turmoil. They don’t care about anything except their smarmy, self-righteous attitude winning out.

And now a rapist could have the same rights to the child as the woman?

That is not pro-life. That is not even a respect for life.

Blaming women who have abortions as whores, is naïve, presumptuous, and disrespectful. Shit happens. It happens to girls who never skip a pill, to married couples who don’t want children for whatever reason, to single girls, when the condom breaks. You get pregnant, and you realize that you can not raise a child for financial/mental/other personal reasons. And the option to abortion is there so it should be safe and accessible because from a public health standpoint it is neccesary for it to be an option. Forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term is nothing short of abuse. And don’t give me an argument for the adoption system. The foster system in this country sucks. The people who ban abortion are the same people who want to ban adoption my gay couples and singles.

And then, you go ahead and restrict  access to contraceptives and information about safe sex. Because God forbid teenagers know how to use condoms. You will not be able to stop people from having sex. You will not be able to prevent teenagers from having sex.  And a lot less would be getting pregnant if you didn’t make it so hard for a girl in rural flyover country to get on The Pill.

There are times when I forget that I hate George W. Bush. I am a disillusioned former government major. I didn’t even vote for John Kerry. I dated a Republican. Yes, there are times, when I forget that George W. Bush is a complete fucking moron.

CliffNotes version of the scenario: Hurricane hits. Oil distribution is severely effected. Prices rise rapidly, and are predicted to rise further. Bush comes out and speaks against “price-grouging at the gasoline pump,”

Now, Bush’s overall economic policy has proven to me that he knows nothing about Basic Economics, but this is really ridiculous. It’s such simple supply-and-demand economics, and the fact that he would attribute the price rise to greedy individuals trying to take advantage of the victims of the Hurricane reeks of Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog mentality.

Oil distribution and production were disrupted. When the supply of a product is drastically reduced, it makes sense that the price would rise, as the demand, in real terms, remains the same. The price rise is what causes the demand to fall, simply; people will be less inclined to be frivolous with the product because it isn’t worth the price. This is what allows the market to eventually stabilize (I have the utmost respect for The Invisible Hand theory.) The problem is, that in the short term, the supply crush causes big price increases and that when combined with the fear mongering media, causes a spectacle, which causes the Federal Government to get even more paternalistic.

Hawaii has gone so far as to institute “price controls” in which they use legal measures to keep the prices below the level needed to effectively reduce demand, and compound the problem. I wouldn’t be surprised if other states – or hell, the federal-fucking-government – follows suite. This time of intervention is extremely dangerous when dealing with a limited resource such as fuel, because it causes the consumers to demand, at the government fixed price, more then the supplies can provide, which leads to shortages. I cite Soviet Russia as the prime example. “Oh, that’s an extreme case, you can’t compare the two.”; How do you think it began? Russia wasn’t collectivized in a day you know.
It starts with media frenzy and government paternalism and then the whole thing just breaks down in a rather inefficient mess.

If I were HTML-savvy enough to start a blog right now, I would. And I would have no choice but to title it “Terri Schiavo Made Me Start A Blog” (Side Note: I think blogspot is my first choice for blogging, but I think you need some HTML knowledge just to add links and stuff. Any advice? For real this time? I have an office job now and lots of time to blog)

Anyway.

I can’t believe I’ve been sucked into this stupid case.

And I hate Ralph Nadar’s supporters.
This presidential election, is, I think shaping up to be closer than was to be expected, say, a year ago. Now Nadar is going to come and possibly fuck things up again. Honestly, screw idealism. Politics is brutal business and a vote for Nadar IS a wasted vote. Yeah, I know, Al Gore sucks, and Al Gore lost the election for Al Gore. But were people voting for Nadar honestly delusional enough to think that Gore was a worse choice than Bush?

In addition, he is very anti-Israel.

Arg. Just Arg.

I am not the notoriously cynical, pessimistic, voted most sarcastic girl I was in high school here. In high school I was good about being the very vocal minority, who (sometimes condescendingly) dismissed the views of my classmates. I bitched about the ridiculousness of a system that reward stupid kids who spit back rhetoric with a high class rank. I tried to avoid getting into NHS. I was a star academic decathalete (and loved it!!!) with Cs in Chemistry, Spanish, and Math. I wasn’t a contradiction, but some might of saw me that way.

I am the token libertarian member of SYRA. If my parents knew I had joined a club with Republican in the title I think they’d cry. I speak up in class and I’m not shy about expressing my opinions if you ask, but I don’t go out of my way to make it known that I’m probably one of the more conservative people on this campus. I don’t write articles for the SkidNews, that’s bashed my club every week. Even though I can write coherent articles it just seems pointless to publish something that people will dismiss because its ‘conservative.’ I don’t know.

Maybe I’m not putting enough faith in the Skidmore community, but in the past year and a half, I’ve found that the ‘collegiate liberals’ here are barely better than Hampshire. Sure they shower more often, and don’t think money is evil, since most of them have quite a lot, but they hold similar narrow-minded views that they refuse to see past. And I don’t understand. College is, ideally, supposed to challenge you, and challenge you’re perceptions of the world. Skidmore doesn’t do that. Most students enter Skidmore as relatively liberal, and take Liberal Studies which is supposed to teach you to think about things the way you never did before, but really just confirms all the comfortable ideas most people already have. It’s approach is normative and no conclusions are drawn. The class would have been controversial in my upper middle class white high school, filled with kids whose parents “Vote for Reagan” signs on their lawns had scared my hippie mother when we first moved to the area. At Skidmore, it just seems to enforce what almost everyone already believes. It doesn’t challenge any assumptions.

Again, maybe I’m just being cynical, but its been a long time since I felt this disillusioned. At Hampshire I found crazy hippies somewhere to the left of communist who spouted endless ridiculous rhetoric and discounted my view because I’m white and straight. At Skidmore I’ve found classes full of people who don’t do their reading, liberals who think the views they acquired freshman year will guide them through the rest of their lives, and a community that is rather intolerant of views that do not fit into its touchy-feely liberal scheme. You’ll certainly never find “The Closing of the American Mind” in LS1 or read a Phyllis Schafly article in Women Studies 101. If the general population doesn’t agree with it, it isn’t discussed. So many viewpoints, so many ideas are discounted, and even ignored. In high school, the focus was narrow and I was under the impression that that changed in college. I was wrong.

I’ve changed since graduating high school, I’m still dramatic, but more quiet – a product of barely uttering a word my entire tenure at Hampshire. I’m less cynical, less bitter, and less angry, because I am more content with my surroundings (sometimes) and my life. I’m not as notorious. I’m somewhat alienated from a good part of campus life, and getting here a year late didn’t help that. I’m not unhappy with that. I like “my” version of college life, even though its often atypical. I love the government department and talking to my professors and getting obsessed with my reading.

But I don’t like being attacked in the paper in a baseless article. I don’t like being in class and having everyone in the room gang up on me, and rudely tell me I’m wrong without even letting me finish my sentence. I don’t expect people to agree with me, in fact, I’m perfectly willing to engage anyone who disagrees with me. I’m not afraid to defend what I believe. I am, however, insulted by the fact that liberals here are so threatened by conservative views that they have to result to anti-SYRA propaganda. I find it appauling that if I try to express myself before Senate I’m accused of breaking the honor code because my opinion is apparently aligned with ‘not upholding the integrity of Skidmore College.’ I find it depressing when people raise completely irrational ideas in class that have no basis in reality and are applauded for their compassionate liberal thinking. And sometimes, I’m lonely, because all I want to do is have a beer and argue about books and politics and ideas, and that’s when I really miss my o-town friends.

Skidmore is not what I expected it to be. I knew it was liberal (and that fits with a lot of my views, actually). I knew it was a mix of hippies and rich kids. I didn’t know they’d lie to me like this. I was promised a challenge and what I’ve gotten is a place where I can whip out a 10 page paper 2 days before and get an A, when Ms Roeser would have just shook her head and used the “STOP” stamp. I’m not unhappy here. College, overall, has just not been what I’ve expected. I’ve created my own form of the college experience, and I’m fine with that, most of the time. It just makes me cynical sometimes. I am, after all, “the cynical one” of the LTTC.

I want beer and good conversation and I want college liberals to stop being so afraid of the views that they try to so hard to counter.
But I’ll take 2 out of 3 (but don’t be sad cause 2 out of 3 ain’t bad)

After Senate meeting last night, I was basically too angry to be coherent. It was absolutely ridiculous. There are no words for how ridiculous people are – Skidmore needs a professional hand holder or something, if stupid liberals are going to CRY because an election official makes them sign a piece of paper saying they will not break the law.

Anyway, SYRA has unofficially nominated me to write something about it. This is what I have so far:

Read the rest of this entry »

Examples of Skidmore’s Touchy-Feely, Everyone Is A Unique & Beautiful Snowflake, Over-the-top Anti-Dog-Eat Dog Liberalism

1) The Greens are changing their name to something equivalent to “Students for Everything that is Good and Fluffy Bunnies” Actually they’re changing their name to “Students for Peace and Justice” (or something) which makes sense because:
a) the only thing they did last year was protest the war
b) The actual Green Party is technically supposed to be a single interest party, the environment. And we already have an environment club.

2) Instead of having debates between SYRA and the Greens (the fluffy bunny club) we have to have roundtables, because debates are too scary and offensive. Plus if the table we use is actually round, then its nice, and equivalent, and non-offensive.

3) There is a new a cappella group forming for all the people who didn’t make the real a cappella groups. If you are a male, you have the chance to try out for two groups. If you are female there are THREE groups, and one of them isn’t very good in the first place. If you don’t make it into any of those groups, there is a reason. Plus, the posters for the group are all like “Feeling Rejected, etc etc.” Well, they are not just feeling rejected they WERE rejected. For a reason.

4) There is a radio show for the discussion of political issues. It is called “The Liberal Democratic Cause”

5) The Greens are whining about the town of Saratoga Springs taking away “our” voting booth. Never mind the fact that there are not voting booths in hospitals, nursing homes, etc. Apparently, voting is not that important to them, or to anyone on Skidmore campus who is “convinced” to vote here because they can’t go downtown to do so. Because to get downtown they’d either have to a) drive, and we know the greens think cars are evil or something. b) walk, and that’s hard, because the greens like to go barefoot (including this girl in my feminist political thought class who puts her bare, dirty feet on the table right next to me)

6) Our new motto for admissions material is “Creative Thought Matters” ie, everyone is a unique and beautiful snowflake, and with the amount of money we paid some PR people, this new slogan cost tens of thousands of dollars a word.

7) LS curriculum has been changed, in part, because people weren’t doing well enough, because they apparently can’t write simple 5 page papers

8. We’re cutting men’s hockey, which will cause freshman and sophomore guys to transfer out, and giving money to girls sports, even though we are already in Title 9 Compliance. And the money is going to the volleyball team (we have a volleyball team?????) and increasing Yoga classes.

This Republican guy on Bill Maher is bitching about the sanctity of marriage, and how we can’t allow gay marriage because it will disrupt the institution. According to him, the purpose of marriage is procreation.
So what about hetereosexuals who don’t procreate? (Because I don’t plan on ever having kids. Ever. And no, I won’t change my mind.)
This argument was especially amusing when it was made by Pat Buchanan a few years ago. His entire argument against gay marriage is based on this biblical bullshit about how marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreating. (and sending your equally close minded spawn into the world)
Buchanan and his wife don’t have kids.

The some Republican chick claimed that its the goal of the gays to screw up the instituion of marriage. Like, its their purpose in life to destory heterosexuals. She also labeled it as a deviant behavior that people choose to engage in.

I just don’t get people. I really don’t.

Last time I checked “The Star-Spangled Banner” wasn’t a political song. College stations around the country were asked to play the national anthem in honor of the song’s anniversary– it wasn’t meant to be a pro-war or anti-war declaration. Skidmore students, however, like to claim that this “decision” was handed down by “Republican lawmakers” and was therefore invalid. First of all, no ‘lawmaker’ handed down a ‘decision.’ It was a request, not an order. The head of WSPN radio would not allow it, claiming it would offend people.

Apprently, the Star Spangled Banner is offensive to liberals now. And because they’re the majority on campus, they get to decide the programming of every radio show. Nice.

A member of SYRA wrote an article for the SkidNews annoucing the creation of a new club. The article included times/dates of meetings, events planned, and the purpose of the club. The article was rejected on the claim that it was bias and a ‘conflict of interests’ because the writer was both a member of SYRA and a writer for SkidNews. Nevermind the fact that the SkidNews has published politically minded articles written by Greens. Why was that not a conflict of interests?
Every pro-war/support our troops/freedom for Iraq sign has been torn down soon after its been put up. This is supported, because there is the claim that the posters/signs were ‘offensive’ and that the people tearing them down were doing what was ‘right’.

It’s nice to know they support censorship and find it moral.