The “War on Women” is the latest Democrat slogan for winning elections. While it is designed to warn you of Republican attacks on the rights of women, it is, in fact, just another political lie.
Political slogans are a lazy person’s substitute for rigorous thought. They are tested in focus groups and polls and are conceived to deceive. When you hear politicians trying to convey an entire story in a few words it is a good idea to listen carefully for what is not being said.
It used to be “family values." That was a stalking horse for universal health care, gay adoption policies, parental leave and a “living wage.”
“Gun safety” is an old perennial generally avoided on the campaign trail but trotted out at every tragedy. It has nothing to do with handling a gun safely, or even keeping them under lock and key. It’s about taking them away.
The left would have women believe that they are the only ones looking out for their rights - to include the right to decide whether or not to use birth control or have an abortion. (Photo: AP)
“Global Warming” survived several Congresses until it became obvious that the globe was not warming so it became “Climate Change." It is now “Global Weirding” blaming every blizzard or heat wave on human activity. Whatever the final cliché, the goal remains the same – reducing our standard of living and redistributing wealth from rich nations to poor nations.
“Working families” is a staple to define the interests of the Democrat base – namely unions. They spend most of their time and your money on non-working families, but that doesn’t work as a campaign slogan. The main planks in this platform are increasing unemployment benefits and the minimum wage.
This brings us back to the deceit of the moment, the “War on Women.” Let’s explore this war and how it started.
The first shot was fired during an "ABC" debate during the 2012 primary when George Stephanopoulos pressed the Republican candidates on whether they supported outlawing birth control. his stunned every Republican on the stage since at no time in their careers had any of them ever proposed such a law, but Stephanopoulos wouldn’t let it go.
Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., right, holds up a passage from the Affordable Care Act concerning health care benefits for women as she tell reporters that House Republicans' fight against it is tantamount to a war against women, Monday, Sept. 30, 2013, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Six weeks later the deceit became clearer at a faux hearing staged by he Democrats in the House of Representatives. The sole witness was Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University student, who demanded that birth control not only be legal, but free. By implication, Republicans threatened that right.
I’ve never understood why any political party would start a war on more than half of the population, but the Democrats seem to think that American women are not very bright. “Reproductive Rights” is the primary front in this war and Democrats insist that only they can protect those rights.
Call me old-fashioned, but I was under the impression that reproductive rights were a gift from God who needs no help from politicians.
What Democrats really mean by reproductive rights is not the right to have children, but the right to not have children. This argument insults women by implying that all they are interested in is reproduction.
In this July 1, 2013, file photo, Democratic state senators, from left, Kirk Watson, Wendy Davis, Leticia Van de Putte and Royce West participate in a pro-abortion rights rally at the state Capitol in Austin, Texas. Davis and Van de Putte are going for a new kind of history in the U.S.: Winning as an all-female ticket for governor and lieutenant governor. The two Democrats may carry the best odds yet in their run in Texas: If they prevail in their March primaries as expected, political experts say, it would be only the fifth time in at least 20 years that a party has nominated women for both governor and lieutenant governor. (AP Photo/Statesman.com, Jay Janner, File)
A state senator in Texas is now famous for staging an 11-hour filibuster against a “fetal pain” law. The bill she so dramatically opposed passed three days later with little fanfare, but she caught her train on the fast track to be the Democrat nominee for governor with a trunk of cash from the national abortion lobby. It is telling that her website does not mention abortion. Apparently you can make a name on the issue, but not a campaign.
The Gosnell murder trial in Philadelphia, which found the abortionist guilty of murder, exposed the filth in his clinic and the fact that abortion clinics are not inspected like other medical facilities. Planned Parenthood actively opposes inspections of abortion facilities and they do so, incredibly, under the guise of protecting women’s “reproductive health.”
Most women can see through all of this. They have interests other than reproduction and are perfectly capable of defending their own rights. I expect that, hearing the bogus “War on Women” battle cry, they will be able to distinguish between cynicism and concern.
John Linder can be contacted at: linderje@yahoo.com or on Twitter @linderje.
–
TheBlaze contributor channel supports an open discourse on a range of views. The opinions expressed in this channel are solely those of each individual author.
