He doesn’t stop to consider the virtues of treating women like people — the only way humanity could have survived is via rape and incest.
Speaking before a conservative group in the Des Moines suburb of Urbandale, the Iowa congressman reviewed legislation he has sought that would outlaw abortions without exceptions for rape and incest. King justified the lack of exceptions by questioning how many people would be alive if not for those conceived through rapes and incest.
“What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King asked, according to video of the event, which was covered by the Des Moines Register. “Considering all the wars and all the rape and pillage that’s taken place … I know I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that.”
Speaking as a fellow homely old white dude, let me just say … being a professional bigoted asshole would be a bigger obstacle than prohibiting rape, and it hasn’t stopped King from reproducing.
Given human overpopulation “how many people would be alive if not for those conceived through rapes and incest” actually is an argument pro legalized abortion – were it correct.
King is the guy other Republikkkans hang out with so they can point to him and say “look, we’re not as bad as he is.”
What as asshole!
Yes, there would be human population on this planet. When a woman does not get pregnant as a result of rape, she will likely instead get pregnant as a result of consensual sex with her husband or boyfriend or even that sexy stranger with whom she had a one night stand. Getting raped isn’t the only way how a woman can have babies.
“It’s not the baby’s fault for the sin of the father, or of the mother.” What a piece of work, this bastard.
“Considering all the wars and all the rape and pillage that’s taken place … I know I can’t certify that I’m not a part of a product of that.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t he admitting to being a rapist here? One who is “a part of a product (i.e., a baby)” of rape would be the father or mother.
He also doesn’t seem to know what incest is in practice, outside of those involved being related.
Sorry, at this point he’s just screaming for attention. He lost me at his “raising other people’s babies” comment some years back. I live in a community with a large immigrant population and I took it personally. We’re proud of kids here. They really are the future, just like Whitney Houston sung, and Steve King can go fuck himself.
A friend of mine, when he heard I had not read any HP Lovecraft, recommended the Shadow Over Innsmouth. I cannot think of it without thinking of Rep. King’s worldview and vice versa. It explains the whole mythology in the clearest terms: those other people, whether the Deep Ones or brown-skinned immigrants are inferior and yet possess confoundedly robust genes. Don’t let them in or our else superior, refined, yet sadly delicate whiteness will be gone forever.
I am white. I’m OK with it. WTF is so great about being white? If Steve King is the shining example of white humanity, then all I have to say is “Iä-R’lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Iä! Iä!”.
And needless to say, a lot of people throughout history have been the product of “raising other people’s babies.”
The argument he’s making is a bit subtler, though not really less odious:
Given that all of us have a rape victim in our ancestry, if everyone throughout history aborted babies conceived through rape, the precise people in this world now would not exist. There would be different people, just not us.
Of course, the same holds for lots of other considerations. For instance, if one particular hominid called Andy, a million years ago, hadn’t gotten eaten by a lion, his beloved wouldn’t have later hooked up with Bob and none of us would be here.
I’m not seeing Steve King arguing for people getting eaten by lions though. I wonder why.
I’m confused. I thought in cases of “legitimate rape” the body was able to prevent a pregnancy. It’s so hard to keep up with their bullshit arguments.
King really does look at things from a glass half empty point of view. How about the following analysis:
Imagine how productive and happy humans would be if only they had complete control of their bodies. Not to mention how productive and happy humans would be if they didn’t have to endure rape and incest. You know, maybe humans would have faired much better as a species if they all had a choice over who they had sexual intercourse with. Not to mention the productive virtues of raising children with happy and mentally sound parents and other nearby members of the social group.
nomadiq @9: But that would mean that the gays start raising massive numbers of gay babies and then suddenly the world is overrun by gays who don’t reproduce because they’re gay and everyone goes extinct! We have to save the not-gay children!
This eejit doesn’t look at things from a glass half-empty / -full binary preservative, but from a glass-all-mine unitary perspective: It’s unpossible for there to be any other points-of-view. Facts not only do not exist, they cannot exist, as a fact might suggest an alternative, which is absurd.
If there was any forethought, maybe he was daring his detractors to start making inbreeding jokes and then he could accuse them of being the ones promoting stereotypes. But I doubt there was any forethought at all. Seriously, he was probably just wondering why he had been out of the news cycle so long, and well, now he’s back. If it works, you keep at it.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA ,what wackaloons you have over there in America ,thank all the phoney gods i am British ,oh bugger just remembered who is the PM .
There goes the Overton window again. He’s not an idiot. He’s shaping the conversation. And we’re not. And that is what’s bothersome here.
drew@14: Of course he’s an idiot. That doesn’t exclude him shifting the Overton window. The people who own him are the non-idiots.
I think most around here would agree that King is a racist dumbfuck in the first degree. So why’s he been an elected official for 22 years? Who’s been running against him? Larry Flint? Charlie Sheen? Satan?
King is absolutely disgusting. Reprehensible. Abhorrent. So who’s keeping him in office all these years? Hey, American Pickers, pick yourself a better representative, FFS.
What kind of horrible people do you suppose populate his district?
Ragutis @ #14 — Basically the same question I posed. It’s worth noting that only people in Iowa’s 4th congressional district vote for or against him. The 4th has a population of about 585k people, 96% white, and almost half rural. He won 50% of the vote in 2018, down from 61% in 2016. That isn’t to say there aren’t plenty of other idiots getting elected in other states and jurisdictions.
Yeah, I was about to post that 2018 was as close as it’s ever been for him. https://ballotpedia.org/Iowa%27s_4th_Congressional_District_election,_2018
I doubt most of his voters are virulent racists like him. More of them are just uncritical racists by default, and a lot of them are simply partisan.
The best response to this was the laughter of Kamala Harris. Any serious response only serves to legitimise these swine, in the same way as “debating” creationists and climate change deniers does. There is no doubt that western “conservative” parties in the 21st century have gone insane, and are continuing to go more insane.
Steve King is wrong on his facts!!!
No surprise, he is always wrong on the facts.
So how many people are alive because of rape and incest today?
It’s very low.
Less than 1.5% of abortions are due to rape and incest.
These are likely self selected to choose abortion.
Meaning the percentage in the population of pregnant women who give birth due to rape and incest is likely a lot lower, less than 1% for sure.
This isn’t going to make much of a difference to the total population in the USA.
So the answer to his rhetorical question of, ““What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled those people out that were products of rape and incest? Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” is…
Yes, the world’s population would be about what it is now.
Steve King is a fundie xian pandering to fundie xians here.
He is also an obvious amoral monster, an idiot, a liar, a racist, and a wannabe female slaver/forced birther.
Fundie xianity isn’t a source of morality and never has been.
Well, he is right here.
He can’t restore his horrible Western Iowa civilization with other people’s babies.
OTOH, a civilization that ugly and dysfunctional deserves to die anyway.
My coastal Northern California civilization has nothing in common with his Western Iowa civilization.
And it is thriving with other people’s babies from all over the world.
I suppose you could kidnap non-white babies and teach them to think like Steve King (or try) but it’s a pretty horrifying thought.
Maybe he’s referring to Adam & Eve (incest all around) populating the world, and Noah & daughters (rape + incest) repopulating it? /sarc
I guess when he goes home he greets his wife and sister with “Hello Mom”.
@mynax — Er… I think that’s Lot and his Daughters. Noah had the ark.
I vote sarah00@8 the winner. I would have completely missed this. (That was Todd Akin and I had to look it up.)
That would explain why so many of them are such log heads…
+++
raven
I remember watching a documentary that was made about the link between modern humans and the Neanderthaler back when they discovered that we interbred and an attempt to display that union. They reconstructed faces and then used make up and stuff to on models to shoot photos and they went for caring, intimate pictures, so of course the narrator asked why they weren’t going for the “traditional” caveman hits cavewoman over the head and drags her by her hair imagery and they said “why should we? Most sex isn’t and wasn’t rape, it’s much more likely that the populations met and people fell in love.”
But it’s so telling about those men’s worldview if they always and only think about sex in terms of violence, conquest and rape.
numerobis wrote:
Indeed. Though the way it’s phrased, he doesn’t seem to understand that there would be different people. This would also explain why he clearly hasn’t thought out how this applies to future generations.
Giliell:
Quote-translating Finnish author Väinö Linna, in a quip riffing on biblical language: “Blessed are the log heads, for they shall not drown”
It’s true of incest, depending on how distant a relation can be for it to qualify as such. If every ancestor of yours were not related to each other then 35 generations back (approximately 1000 years) you’ve have more ancestors than there have ever been human beings on Earth.
Callinectes@32
In practice, there’s a limit on what’s considered incest. I would guess that in small enough societies, marriages between 3rd cousins and beyond are nearly unavoidable. Isn’t Norman Rockwell’s family tree painting incestuous? https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Family-Tree