As many of my followers know, I’m an unashamed daytime TV junkie and one of the shows I enjoy watching is ABC’s panel gabfest, The View. Last week, former co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck hit the talk show circuit promoting her new book, Point of View. Much of it details her time on the show while questionably leaving out her former co-host and sparring partner, Rosie O’Donnell. While the “split-screen” is a very popular and defining moment for Hasselbeck, the most memorable thing she ever said was something that made me interrogate my own political and moral beliefs.
Right before O’Donnell joined the show, a heated exchange took place around the time the FDA approved the morning after pill to be sold over the counter. The clips of the exchange went everywhere and within the week, ABC red flagged and removed all of them from YouTube and other websites. Luckily, I found video of the discussion on ABC News’ website a few years back and saved it in case I ever needed to reference it.
For those of you who refuse to expose yourself to the clip, here’s the recap: Hasselbeck launched into her severe disapproval of the morning after pill being readily available because she believed that taking the pill was akin to “birthing a baby and leaving it out in the street.” Guest host Lisa Loeb called her position “extreme.” While Hasselbeck tried to explain and defend her position to her panelists, predictably she was interrupted and shouted down by fellow panelist Joy Behar and ridiculed by the studio audience. Hasselbeck was asked by then-moderator Barbara Walters whether someone who is the victim of rape or incest should have access to the morning after pill or an abortion and she responded that while she would not choose it for herself (and making it clear she wouldn’t approve it for anyone else), she believes it should be administered only in those circumstances. The exchange ended with Walters admonishing a defiant Hasselbeck on the air after going off the rails. Then following a commercial break, a crying Hasselbeck and Walters held each other in a parent/childlike exchange and Walters praised Hasselbeck for her passionate views. She nearly quit the show if the recent excerpts from a competing tell-all book are to be believed. But the mic drop moment that sticks to me that many missed in the mele was when Hasselbeck asked her fellow panelists and the viewing audience about babies born of rape or incest, “Does that life then not have value?”
Think about that question beyond her position on the morning after pill. In today’s social justice climate, we place paramount importance on the lives of those who are marginalized, be it for race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, sex/gender, religion, class, or disability. Leaving my own position out of the argument, I have to ask why does our liberal social justice climate refuse to acknowledge the personhood and value of life in society’s most vulnerable?
The value of life isn’t a partisan issue. I don’t believe it is up to humanity to determine who is more worthy of living than someone else, even if that inherently goes against my support of capital punishment and first-trimester only abortions. Why do liberal social justice warriors care about the lives of young black men being terminated by the police while simultaneously approving of those same lives being dismembered, discarded, and sold for sport? Why do they care about the value of the lives of other marginalized individuals being taken by white supremacist groups and bigots, but not about the lives ended by organizations rooted in white supremacy like Planned Parenthood? Why do they care about Betsy DeVos’ Department of Education cutting Special Olympics funding if they believe there’s no value in the life of a person with Down Syndrome? Liberals love to use to term "reproductive justice" to describe a woman's right to an abortion. I believe that term should also apply to the mother being deceived and taken advantage of by organizations and clinics like Planned Parenthood. And most of all, the justice should extend to the unborn and those born after botched abortions who have no way of defending their right to life. The recent bills coming up in state legislatures across the country, regarding approval of what is basically infanticide, is exactly the sort of slippery slope Hasselbeck referenced when she discussed the morning after pill with her co-hosts over a decade ago. One of the biggest threats to the lives of marginalized individuals is the one Democrats and social justice warriors conveniently refuse to address. Those lives could have also been our future presidents, innovators, and entertainers, too. Those lives mattered. Hasselbeck’s morality play sticks with me to this day. It is the most important and authentic thing she ever said during her years on The View. And as someone who goes a little off the rails on his own rants, I don’t think she should have any shame in her morning after pill word salad or being angry that she was silenced by Walters. And a big thanks to her and other passionate pro-lifers who are out there saying the things that many of their counterparts are not brave enough to say or express for fear of retribution. Some of us are listening to you.
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The last time I posted to these pages of which I am so fond, I said that I had never and would likely never again write a movie review. As it happens, I was (sort of) incorrect on that second point.
The Matrix premiered in cinemas in 1999 (which we had been partying as if it were for almost two decades already - RIP Prince). I cannot remember exactly, but it may have been the first movie I ever owned on DVD. I would have streamed it, but that wasn’t a thing 20 years ago. I am not a particularly big fan of the science fiction genre in any medium. I don’t hate it, but it’s lower on my list than some might have it. When Star Wars came out in 1977, I saw it a couple times. It was a thing when I was 14. Anyway, I spent a lot of time at my grandparents’ house right across a big drainage ditch from the mall cineplex. This was how we did it back in the olden days. There’s an arcade where you hang out and spend all the quarters you can… acquire, an Orange Julius where you grab a lovely beverage, and then a few screens just down the hall. They sold popcorn and snowcaps and all the usual shit everyone still chokes down as if they think movie time suspends dietary reality as well as disbelief. Another movie came out in the summer of 1977 that got a lot more of my attention and dollars. It premiered around the same time as Star Wars (I don’t know what the new name is - it’s the first one). I saw Smokey and the Bandit at least six times in that little olden days mall cineplex. And Sally Field really did have a very nice ass back in 1977. Cledus wasn’t wrong. The Millennium Falcon was cool, but I could see a Trans Am 6.6 every day. I liked cars. Boys used to dream about dinosaur-powered private conveyances back in the olden days too. (Disclosure: I still very much do. Check my wish list and send me a Bugatti for Christmas) In the interest of making the point I meant to make when this piece was fermenting or metastasizing or aging in the barrels of my mind, let me now transition smoothly and without any noticeable rhetorical stitching to my point: The Matrix. I was born in 1963. My first memory of an event being broadcast live on television as it happened was Apollo 11 landing on the surface of the moon on 20 July 1969. Maybe there are people who can top that, but I reckon they are few. I was six when that happened, so perhaps watching men in real life visit rocks in space put an early damper on my future enthusiasm for space-based science fiction. It isn’t worth paying a shrink to figure it out. I have nothing against the north African desertscape that was Tatooine, but I saw real dudes on the real moon when I was a little kid. You really gotta bring it to impress me on the science fiction front. The Matrix really brought it. I was skeptical about the movie. I knew who Keanu Reeves was. He was Bill S. Preston, Esq. (This just in: He still is.) He was Johnny Utah. Hell, he was married to Charlize Theron when she gashed her throat open with a piece of window glass in “The Devil’s Advocate.” OK, I admit it wasn’t Reeves: It was me. I thought he was an airhead because the first time I remember seeing him was in Bill and Ted, and I loved that ridiculous thing. But I came to think as time went by that Reeves is actually a really good actor. He seems to know his range, and his range is more impressive than I had thought early on. I’m not suggesting he is a great Shakespearean thespian, but he is most assuredly better at the craft than I initially believed. Kind of a wooden thing going on, but he knows his lane. And that works. Also, I did not know who Carrie-Anne Moss was until I saw the film, so there were really no downsides to it in my opinion. Man, she was so hot in that catwoman suit. This isn’t really a movie review. If you are reading this, odds are you are clever enough to have figured that out. What it is is a tribute to a film that amazed the world 20 years ago. The Matrix is iconic, and that takes some doing. I don’t need to use quote marks to let you know I’m talking about a specific work when I write ‘The Matrix’. And it holds up. SciFi tends to resonate with later generations better than other genres because it exists outside the plane of reality. Even so, the film also was innovative in ways that were new to me. When Trinity was in the phone booth and that whole garbage truck thing happened, that was a really new thing to me. I could come up with things to criticize about The Matrix…
No.
Maybe it isn’t the best sci-fi action movie ever made. But then, maybe it is. Who’s to say? It was innovative in its production. It introduced some concepts no one had seen before. Also, did I mention the Carrie-Anne Moss in the catsuit thing? And the classic ‘weak guy betrays his brothers’ storyline gets updated. Fragging takes on a whole new meaning with ‘if you have any words for him before I unplug his head...’ That’s just nasty fragging. Bitter. Cypher was an amazingly well-played character. And he was doing that so he WOULD get a tube in the back of his head so he could falsely believe he was happy until his transmogrification into compost. That is a thing I would write if I were trying to convince people socialism always leads to tyranny. I could write more words and meander down other plot paths, but what would be the point? What if I told you The Matrix turns 20 on Sunday? And that it’s leaving Prime the next day? Take the time to watch it again. It’s as good as you remember. Maybe even better.
You can forget about the “slow creep” of socialism and eugenics. That party is here today. A normal mind can see that and be nervous, but there are too many people who want all of the stuff without putting in any of the work or worrying about the costs, monetary or otherwise. It's an easy sell and it doesn't have to be sold on things that are true.
It is difficult to compete against or reason with the level of behavioral conditioning that modern American leftism has accomplished. The triggers vary but the level of outrage is always the same. The Pavlovian efforts of leftism have had great success at instilling knee jerk reflexes in the psyches of their subscribers. Between all the bell ringing and salivating there are real consequences, and those consequences aren't even given a passing thought. There is an undeveloped sense of independence. Freedom was not nurtured enough and the result is an insatiably entitled people. We all know how such things end, over and over again. But the socialist wave doesn't scare the Ds. In 2016 the Democrats had to rig their own primary to defeat their socialist candidate. The resulting divide between the Bernie-bros and Clintonites may have helped spare the country a Democrat win in 2016, but the socialist left was clearly ready to go mainstream. No, these days If you really want to get a rise out of Democrats, announce you're running center left in the Democrat primary. That'll stir them up. There's a reaction against anything close to normalcy. We've seen the Democrats have to weigh the morally right thing to do against the the emerging new power rising from the left, and they have folded. The radicals are calling the shots now. This just didn't happen - it is the inevitable result of the Obama era. Democrats failed to openly push back against Obama, and the ideology they thought they were towing is now the engine. The refusal of Democrats to criticize or stand in opposition to then-President Obama left the door open for a more radical liberalism. He openly disdained Israel, was aggressively pro-abortion, and he fed into identity politics and division while pushing ever-larger government and penalizing conservatives. This new wave isn't just radical, it's angry. It'll be all vengeance if they win in 2020. There's no shame or humility or trying to win over Americans. It'll be vindictive and of course, incredibly pretentious. Imagine having a deep bench on black face controversy and still having the nerve to call half the country racist. The Democrats are so locked into anti-Semitism that a simple resolution to condemn it had to be debated and retooled so not to give the impression that they were too friendly to the Jews. It doesn't give them pause about taking a moral high ground or pointing fingers. They shrug off infanticide but find a way to rage for weeks over a kid in MAGA hat. A lot of that is the conditioning. Something to look out for. |
MisfitsJust a gaggle of people from all over who have similar interests and loud opinions mixed with a dose of humor. We met on Twitter. Archives
January 2024
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