Every sperm is a baby

It will always be impossible to convince all religious people that religion isn't the mother of religious fanaticism and of the self-righteousness that makes fanaticism so dangerous. In fact they may be right in that such ego disorders seem to be a general human failing, albeit one that so often finds a home in Churches, Mosques and Synagogues -- but that doesn't soften the fear that from the frustration believers in old religions feel about the implacable advance of what I like to call enlightenment, a movement will arise like movements in the past to overthrow an age of reason and science and relative freedom.

"any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere but in a woman’s vagina shall be interpreted and construed as an action against an unborn child.”


There seems to be nothing in that statement that might hint it did not originate in the 5th century before the Christian era and nothing to suggest that it wasn't a measure introduced by a Republican, but alas, neither is true. Oklahoma State Senator Constance Johnson is a Democrat and she has introduced an amendment to pending Senate Bill 1433, a typical "life begins at conception" bill, that says that the resulting fetus

“at every stage of development (has) all the rights, privileges, and immunities available to other persons, citizens, and residents of this state.”

Ms. Johnson wants to extend that right to a sperm cell, although apparently she thinks egg cells are exempt -- since otherwise not getting pregnant might also be as murderous as masturbation. Still, the "every sperm is a baby" bill doesn't have a chance, but apparently Rick Santorum does and probably for few other reasons than his own ridiculous positions on interfering with private lives in the name of small government and Big Religion. Santorum has attracted a plurality of Republican loonies in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota.

It's hard to think that Rick has a real shot at the presidency, but you know, I've been looking at Costa Rica lately.

I'm generally very intolerant of the "both sides are equally bad" arguments that depend on fraudulent accounting and false equivalence to forgive the side with the preponderance of guilt, but Geez - what does it say about Oklahoma Democrats that she is allowed to speak for them?

If Joe McCarthy were a Democrat

"this new report is proof positive that known and suspected terrorists are exploiting a major loophole in our law, threatening our families and our communities. This 'terror gap' has been open too long, and our national security demands that we shut it down."

says Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ.) No one my age can fail to be reminded of Tailgunner Joe McCarthy and his fake list of names. Frank, of course, is also a damn liar.

As might be expected, we're really not talking about "known" terrorists, but about people who have been put on a watch list, but against whom there is no evidence. The Justice Department tells us says CNN, that the FBI had thousands of names on its watch list based on outdated information and should have removed them. The GAO notes properly that being on a terrorist watch list does not mean that someone is involved in any terrorist activity, so as I said, we're not talking about "known terrorists" at all. Neither are we talking about a "loophole" here; we're talking about punishment without due process.

We should all be concerned when there's a proposal to make an accusation, an opinion, a conjecture or a suspicion reason to take away someones constitutional rights, but of course there are those so frightened of coming to harm that they just don't care, which makes them unfit to be participants in a democracy such as ours: a government of laws, not of fear. Sad to say, they're not all Republicans.

Lautenberg refers to a GAO report released yesterday, which reveals that about 90% of people who have sought to buy firearms and who had their names on a "watch list" were allowed to buy them because there was no evidence that they actually were involved in illegal acts. Perhaps they had opinions that were scary, beliefs that troubled the list makers and somehow knew other scary people: perhaps they were falsely accused or, as is often the case, had a name similar to that of a convicted felon. But of course our thoughts are supposed to be free and our associations as well. Should we start putting people who oppose abortion on a terrorism watch list because others with similar beliefs have committed crimes? What about people who have attended "Tea bag" parties? People with an 'unauthorized' religion? Why isn't thought crime abhorrent to us any more?

From his perch in the grandstand, Lautenberg claims to be introducing legislation that would give the U.S. attorney general "authority to stop the sale of guns or explosives to terrorists." That's something the law already addresses and of course it's deceptive since one is not a terrorist without some evidence of illegal activity and indeed without due process to determine guilt or innocence. So what Frank is saying here is that suspicion is guilt and suspicion trumps a fair trial and if you're different or someone doesn't like you, you have no rights. How long have we been fighting monsters that we're starting not to notice what we've become?