The thing about multi-billionaires is they are1) unelectable and 2) more powerful than a modest sized country. That’s a bad combination already, assuming one appreciates democracy anyway. But Santorum financier zillionaire Foster Friess adds another concern: there’s just too many toadies willing to adore their invisible robes, they have no way to know when they’re being utter fools. In the words of MC Hawking, check it:
TPM — “I am absolutely stunned how the Democrats were able to somehow say that the Republicans had a war on women. … What was the war on women? They tried convince that somehow Santorum was going to do this, that Republicans were against contraception,” he said. “Hugh Hefner said, this guy Friess wants to reverse the sexual revolution. Well, I have four kids. They’re two years apart. And contraception’s been very, very good to me.”Friess smiled as the reporters in the room laughed.
“And so how the Democrats got away with this, I think, is another indication of a flaw of the Republicans. No one confronted that. No one confronted that and said this is a bald-faced demagoguery. But a lot of the women out there, they, you know, they were, I guess — what’s the proper word I want to use — seduced — that this a war on women.”
So after professing complete ignorance on why people might object to the GOP line on contraception, he then finishes with this, wherein he not only answers his own question, he’s not aware that he has done so:
“That message,” said Friess, “took advantage of all the low-information women voters out there who just follow Joy Behar, and had no idea that Rick Santorum — and Mother Theresa — believe that contraception goes against the Bible’s teaching.”
Mr Friess, since you must be surrounded by toadies who won’t point the obvious out, I will: there’s no need to be stunned, it’s so simple. Voters do know that some conservative fundamentalists object to birth control and other personal choices for religious reasons. Fundamentalists are loud as shit about it, they won’t shut the fuck up, they scream it and write it and live it 24/7. That’s precisely why you lost the ‘war on women’.
Now try to follow along: most Americans, including most women, do not like over zealous religious fundamentalists sticking their pious nose into personal matters like reproductive choices and health care decisions. Most Americans — including fundamentalists — abhor people forcing their religious believe onto voters who do not share them. It’s terribly, demonstrably, universally unpopular in modern America and throughout the developed world. And yet, at every opportunity, throughout the 2012 election season and beyond, conservative politicians reinforced that perception and re-pledged their fealty to unpopular ideas, and they did so on camera to wildly applauding conservative audiences. Nobody outside of the fundamentalist movement and the conservative caucus that harnesses it likes these fundy assholes. NO ONE. That’s how democrats ‘got away’ with it.
Reads that last part as many times as it takes to sneak this empircal fact past your logic firewall and into your wetdrive.
The morality of contraception was settled in the 1960s. The majority of Americans decided contraception, specifically “the pill”, was moral. A few people like the Catholic bishops and Mormon presidency disagreed with the consensus, but everyone else, including the Catholic and Mormon laity, use contraception without a qualm.
Then during the last election campaign people like Santorum and Limbaugh came out against contraception. Limbaugh was surprised that so few people agreed with him that a woman using the pill was a slut. Freiss, a conservative evangelical Christian, was the guy who embarrassed Santorum with the “aspirin between the knees” contraception comment. Friess does not understand he’s beating a dead horse by bringing up contraception. But many American women see his “concerns” about contraception as being an attack on them. Who’s to say they’re wrong?
I think Loretta Lynn said it best.
The Bible also says that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to go to heaven.
I think you mean unelected. I’d like to think that this particular one would be unelectable but I fear I am wrong.
At some level, this is also part of the redefinition of sexism, too, wherein if you aren’t actually saying “Oooo, I hate them wascally wimmin!”, that somehow means you aren’t sexist.
In this case, they’re kind of saying “It’s not like we’re targeting women just to be mean to women – we’re just doing what God wants! Are you gonna call God sexist?” Why, yes we are, because the God character they believe in is sexist. Anti-human generally in a number of other ways, to be sure, but also sexist. And no god that acts the way their god does deserves to be worshipped, even if It did exist.
Freiss must find it inconceivable that many people do not take a Bronze age holy book as the final word on behavior. He is making the assumption that respect for the bible is a given. He is also probably not that familiar with what the book actually says. The book is so inconsistent that it cannot be used as a basis for any moral code without interpretation. What is in a bible based moral code depends entirely on which cherries one tends to pick. Folks like Freiss assume that the “word of god” is clear but it is anything but.
I don’t think many of the super rich would ever want to soil their hands doing the day to day work of politics. It’s far easier for them to simply hire someone to do the dirty work for them. There will never be a shortage of people like Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, who are willing to prostitue what little character they have and do the bidding of the rich.
Unelectable? I don’t know about that. Michael Bloomberg got himself elected 3 times as mayor of the big apple.
I’m having trouble even parsing what Friess is saying, but I guess he thinks the belief is “Republicans are opposed to contraception because they’re waging war on women” rather than “Republicans are waging war on women by (inter alia) fighting contraception”?