Minivans and the mating habits of rightwing soccer moms

Or
The Battle Cry of the right wing Pidgin
Or
How I learned to stop hating and show compassion for the far right

On my way to work today I was struck by the number of minivans sporting bumper stickers. This in and of its self wouldn’t be out of the norm, how many times have you seen a minivan with “Baby on Board” or “My Child is an Honor Roll student at BLAHBLAHBLAH.” No, this was not the case today. As I drove to work I saw McCain/Palin stickers holding on for dear life. Now, I was raised by liberals. Granted most of the folks with these particular bumper stickers on their grocery getters where raised by conservatives, and like it or not, most of us end up a lot, if not exactly like our parents. So when I see a certain type of bumper sticker on a car I have to admit I still get a little riled up…even though we won. But these badges of shame are not what got my attention on today. It was the pro-life stickers. There seemed to be an inordinate amount of pro life stickers on minivans today. (Why did I notice this? I was in a hurry to get to work and I kept getting stuck behind them…it seems that right wingers in this area have the annoying habit of going just below the speed limit in such a way as to not let me pass.)

The area of VA that I live in is known to be one of the last bastions of the right in Northern Va., AKA Godless Communist Va., AKA not the REAL Va.
Let me state that I am pro-choice. I don’t believe that life begins at conception, contrary to the propaganda that states otherwise. One of the stickers I saw today pointed out that “Every Child is a blessing from God” which is a lovely sentiment…if you believe in God. I believe in compassion and tolerance and try my damndest to practice it. I think that folks should look out for each other and that one should not kill or abuse another being. I also believe in impermanence. I am also open minded enough to consider the fact that we might be wrong and perhaps human life isn’t so precious, at least no more precious then any other organism on this planet. Perhaps we believe that it is so that we can justify all the suffering that is inherent in life…isn’t that why folks buy into the concept of God and an afterlife. I also don’t feel you have to believe in god to consider something to be a blessing. I consider my relationship a blessing, the love my girl and I share is a blessing; the fact that we really get each other is a blessing. But we work hard at that shit! I really feel we deserve the right to take full credit for the blessing we share….we created it, not some mystical space man in the clouds. How many folks out there believe in God, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Mohammad, Pan, Isis, Osiris, Ishtar, Mithras, or The Flying Spaghetti Monster that have relationships that go down in flames? But I digress…
The thing that struck me where these slogans that the right-to-lifers (always found that funny…most of these folks would bomb the hell out of any one that was different from themselves in the name of Gods glory but they refer to them selves as pro-life…I know I am not the first one to point this out, but it bares repeating.) feel the need to display. So after thinking about it and wondering about the plethora of slogans out there, I googled “right to life Slogans” and wouldn’t you know it…a web site appeared at the top of the page with a list of ready-made slogans to be transferred to the medium of your choice, be it the aforementioned bumper sticker, or the classic picket sign sporting that ever popular picture of an aborted fetus…
Most of these speak for them selves. Here is a partial list:

“If it's not a baby, you're not pregnant!”

“Careful, former fetus driving.”

“I think, therefore I'm Pro-life!”
Cogito ergo I don’t think so. I’m willing to bet that this is not what Descartes had in mind.

“Life - The choice of the next generation!”
Like a Pepsi commercial only more tasteless.

“Abortion doesn't make you unpregnant, it makes you the mother of a dead baby.”
Unpregnant?

“TECHNICALLY... you’re just a blob of tissue too!”
I actually agree with this one in principal…

“Abortion? The supreme court also legalized slavery…”
That’s just fucked up…

Last but not least, my personal favorite…

“Real feminists don't kill babies!”
Real feminists don’t vote for misogynist assholes! Real feminists what equal pay for equal work! Real feminists want to put money into sex education so that children are protected from STDs and teen pregnancy! Real feminists….well, you get the point.

So what’s my point?

POINT ONE.

“A slogan is a memorable motto or phrase used in a political, commercial, religious and other context as a repetitive expression of an idea or purpose. The word slogan is derived from slogorn which was an Anglicization of the Scottish and Irish Gaelic sluagh-ghairm (sluagh "army",+ gairm "cry").” *

“A battle cry is a yell or chant taken up in battle, usually by members of the same military unit. Battle cries are not necessarily articulate, although they often aim to invoke patriotic or religious sentiment. Their purpose is a combination of arousing aggression on one's own side and causing intimidation on the hostile side. Battle cries are a universal form of display behaviour (i.e. threat display) aiming at competitive advantage, ideally by overstating one's own aggressive potential to a point where the enemy prefers to avoid confrontation altogether and opts to flee. In order to overstate one's potential for aggression, battle cries need to be as loud as possible.”*

Slogans in essence, are a battle cry, or advertising. In the case of these particular slogans they are hurtful, hateful, and judgmental. Leave it to the right to make a sound bite out of a hot button issue, which fearful people latch onto because it is easier to buy into to a prefabricated ideal then to put forth the energy to think for them selves. The point is that this is not an issue that can be addressed by some bullshit slogan. I believe that a woman has the right to make this decision for her self. But buy no means is this an easy decision to make. To insinuate that it is just pisses me of. I have known several women whom have gone through this experience and there is not one that took it lightly. These where sensitive and spiritual women who weighed all of there options prior to taking that step and no bullshit slogan on a bumper sticker can some up any one of them up.


POINT TWO.

It seems to me that the right wing in the US has NO interest at all in sitting down and trying to communicate as proven by the few jackasses still on Capital Hill. It seems to me that they would rather throw around sound bites and cat call rather then say anything that has any real substance. Any time I have tried to make civil conversation, and I admit that I have a problem making civil conversation with folks that behave this way…but anytime that I have tried they just try and beat me down with the same rhetoric over and over again in an attempt to drown me out .There is no denying that I have just walked away from these ‘discussions’ out of pure frustration. To their fevered brain it is perceived as a victory. They then state that I couldn’t repute their solid logic and brilliant debating skill. Meanwhile, no exchange of ideas has taken place, no true debate. I tell ya what. This right wing extremist shit didn’t stop just because we got Obama in the White House and chances are it will get worse. We can not become complacent folks. We got the right man for the job without a doubt. But now the work begins and all of us are needed. Remember, we had Clinton for eight great years…we became complacent and Bush snuck in…we can’t sleep again.

I believe that most people are decent folks if you get a chance to talk to them one on one. I have learned over the years that if you sit down and talk to some one with a different point of view and keep it civil you might actually learn something about them and about your self. Learn to practice compassion and you have a good chance of walk away from the conversation with a little deeper understanding of your fellow man. I don’t always succeed at this, but I really do try. The hardest is when folks preach so much judgment and cruelty. If I am not careful it brings out the worst parts of me. The hardest to have compassion for are the folks that consider themselves “good people” but stand on picket lines at clinics and harass young women who are about to go through of one of the most difficult experiences of their lives. I have yet to figure out how to have compassion for folks the preach hatred and hurt others. I hope one day that I can be that man.

What do I suggest to make things better? What is my plan to fix this? I pledge to try and be a good person, and I would encourage every one that reads this to do the same. I will encourage every one I meet to practice compassion if not in words the hopefully in my actions. I am not saying that I am even close to being there; I think that’s pretty evident. But I won’t stop trying.


*Taken directly from Wikipedia.