I Really Wish President Obama's Mother Was Still Alive
So she could smack down shit like this:
http://tpmtv.talkingpointsmemo.com/?id=2977330
In the video, Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS) suggests that the mothers of both the President of the United States of American and a sitting Supreme Court Justice may have chosen abortion if only they had been able to access public funding for the procedure.
I've heard a lot of intellectually dishonest arguments in my life. Until today, my favorite was conveniently forgetting the marginal tax rate when calculating tax burden on our beleagured wealthy citizens. Tiahrt has reached a staggering new level of crass and insulting by suggesting that if public funding for abortion had been available decades ago, we'd be deprived of two of our current leaders.
But if the Congressman wants to play the What If game, I've got a couple scenarios for him to consider:
*If Congress had stopped sitting on their collective thumbs in fear of losing elections, and stopped George Bush from launching an agressive war, we wouldn't have been deprived of all of the soldiers killed in Iraq. What if one of them would have been our president some day?
*What if, in 1995 when Tiahrt first went to Congress, instead of using stem cell research as a political football, they would have gotten serious about providing funding for research into cures for Parkinson's and Alzheimer's and a whole bunch of other diseases? How many people have been lost to illness that could have been stopped or slowed since then?
Why doesn't he talk about those hypotheticals on the floor of the House, instead of whose mother would have chosen abortion if only she'd had the money 50 years ago?
This is a man who is running for Senate in 2010. The mind reels.
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This one is not cross posted at Dagblog, but there is a health care cost savings discussion just itchin' to get started.
When I read title of your post, I thought of how wonderful it would be if Stanley Ann Dunham were alive to see her son succeed as POTUS, and how her world view and knowledge of microfinance could benefit us here and now.
Yes, I saw video footage of this pitiful hypothetical question about abortion. Rep. Tiarht is a pathetic excuse of a man. These one-note politicians need to be run out of town.
July 17, 2009 6:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
I thought of how wonderful it would be if Stanley Ann Dunham were alive to see her son succeed as POTUS, and how her world view and knowledge of microfinance could benefit us here and now.
Barack's mother was a hippy chick who loathed the U.S. and who had overly romantic notions of the virtues of third-world poverty, and virulently resented third-worlders (such as Obama's stepfather Lolo Soetoro) who saw material progress as superior to "authenticity." I seriously doubt that she could do much to help us.
Interestingly enough, her racial politics were such that Obama's blackness probably would reduce the chance that she would abort him, were she so inclined. She would have been much more likely to have aborted a fully-white baby whose paternal heritage would have been more mundane and less romantic.
July 18, 2009 4:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
This is not about what we think she would have done, or not done in any given situation. This post is about the fact that trying to discern her thoughts all these years later is absurd, and assuming any decision is idiotic.
Especially within the confines of legalized abortion, and whether it should be on the table re public health care. Ridiculous and inflammatory.
July 18, 2009 4:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't think so. Going from social norms for abortions over the last years, especially white upper middle class 17-year-old single girls just entering college, I'd say if the child weren't half-black there'd be almost 100% chance of abortion. With her hippie chick 3rd world focus, that changes the odds in more unknowable ways.
July 18, 2009 11:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Unknowable - exactly.
If you're going by the "norms" regarding "white upper middle class 17-year-old single girls just entering college", then feel free to charge on with your happy thoughts. But that example has nothing to do with whether public funding would make a difference, because those young women could certainly obtain the procedure without it.
That's the very core of Tiahrt's rant - bait and switch.
July 18, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have statistics on these demographics? 17 year old white middle class, or hippie chicks with 3rd world with a 3rd world focus. I think I'll go with none of these being knowable.
July 18, 2009 2:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
How's that hole, nice and dark, eh?
Yeah, there are some basic abortion statistics kept. You can figure it out by race, age, education, etc. Even by gender ;-)
July 18, 2009 4:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Been there lately? Do they have a hippie chick category? Just sayin'.
July 18, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Barack's mother was a hippy chick who loathed the U.S. and who had overly romantic notions of the virtues of third-world poverty ... her racial politics were such that Obama's blackness ...
If you're trying to outdo Pat Bucanan in the outdated racist/sexist competition, you are succeeding. Why you would want to win that particular contest, is another matter all together.
Take this to Vdare. It does not belong here.
July 18, 2009 6:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bucanan = Buchanan
July 18, 2009 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
So, you once met her and discussed such matters, did you? Of course, not. You're just a typical sad right-wing bigot talking out of his/her ass. Kind of cowardly, BTW, attacking a deceased mother, but that's also typical right-wing behavior.
July 18, 2009 8:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
What's the percentage of pregnant white upper middle class single girls entering college who keep their baby?
There's a field called statistics. It's really helpful in guessing the unknown. Of course there are other factors, so when you say "1960's White hippie chick with anthropology leanings carrying a half-black child" it shifts the statistics and conclusions quite a bit.
If I leave a $20 bill on the sidewalk, there is near 100% chance everyone who sees it will pocket it with slightly varying very mild attempts at finding the owner.
July 18, 2009 11:31 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's see, here's a hypothetical, November 2008, you're an American black college student. I've never met you. Do you think I can predict your vote to 95% accuracy?
July 18, 2009 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's another hypothetical. You flip a coin and it comes up heads. So, can you now accurately predict, with some degree of confidence, as Glaivester puts it, that the coin will come up heads on the next flip as well? The problem with statistics is that they tell you NOTHING about what any single occurrence will be.
If one cannot, with some degree of confidence, predict the outcome of a probabilistic system as simple as the flip of a coin, how could anyone suppose to predict, with some degree of confidence, what decision would have been made by a probabilistic system as complex as a human being? Anyone suggesting that can do otherwise is positioned only slander another person.
So, no, you cannot accurately predict the vote of meeting me or any other one person. You can accurately talk about the odds over meeting many such persons or instances, but you can accurately predict nothing regarding the outcome of any single instance in a probabilistic system. Just as you cannot accurately predict a single flip of a coin.
July 18, 2009 12:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a bizarre concept of life, you can't predict anyone because there are some inaccuracies.
Do I think I can predict whether you would let your 13-year-old daughter carry an accidental pregnancy to term? How about a pregnancy from rape? How far do we have to carry this before you'll accept that yeah, there are some circumstances where we can pretty well know how specific people will respond? We're not that mysterious. That's why we have marketing departments.
July 18, 2009 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
But without knowing someone personally, and even sometimes knowing someone personally, it's impossible to predict. How can you predict what I, as a white women, would have done had I found myself pregnant at 17, when I can't even predict it? I think I probably would have had an abortion. But every single one of my female cousins found themselves in said situation between the ages of 17 and 19, and none of them chose to abort. I'm the youngest. Maybe I would have followed their example? How can I possibly know? And if I can't possibly know, how can you possibly predict, with any degree of accuracy?
July 18, 2009 1:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
17, starting college - University, no community college. You can add "liberal parents and non-fundamentalist religion". Play the odds, that's how people win at cards.
July 18, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Des, I'm having a hard time understanding what your point is here. Can we use statistics to make predictions about how people who fit into certain categories will act? Sure, we can make predictions all day long. Sometimes we're right. Sometimes, we're wrong.
But do you think that it follows that it is therefore acceptable to suggest that individuals who we have no personal knowledge of would have made the same decision that a hypothetical model would predict that they would make? We use those models to predict future behavior, not past. And it is simply not okay for a sitting congressman to argue against abortion on the basis that two of the most high profile African Americans in the country (including the highest) would have been aborted if their mothers had access to government funding to pay for it. It's disgusting.
July 18, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
We've argued that for years, "maybe Einstein would have been aborted". Well, maybe Hitler would have been aborted as well. There's quite a lot of Right Wing commenting about the eugenics sentiments of Planned Parenthood's founder - simultaneously promoting a method for fighting black poverty while carrying attitudes that seem to demean and undervalue black life.
People have been criticizing the Palins over their choices, and the timing was unfortunate of course because Bristol did not know her mother would be VP candidate and still had to go on TV and answer questions she never should have, but that's our political life. Well, Obama's mother never chose to be part of the campaign either, but there she is, part of her son's speeches, "racist thinking" Grandma too, dead Dad and some Great Aunt in Kenya on Lake Victoria as well. Hell, they ask a beauty contestant about her thoughts on gay marriage and get upset because she gives her opinion. We're nosy people. But certainly if Ann Dunham had easier access to more society accepted abortions, the chance of Barack getting aborted would have gone up. Yep, I can live with that. Bill Clinton might have been aborted too. Doesn't change my position on having free choice of abortion.
If we're going to discuss something as serious and controversial as abortion, we have to discuss the ugly areas as well, like 3rd trimester abortions and be able to give real, substantive, factual answers, not just say, "oh, that's unfair or "that rarely happens" without addressing the issue. (The last comment just leads to the obvious answer, "oh, so just ban 3rd trimester abortions").
July 19, 2009 6:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
You compare a candidate speaking about his parents in the context of his life and getting to him to where he is today to a congressman suggesting that two women he has never met might have chosen abortion 40 or 50 some years ago? Come on.
I've never heard anybody muse about whether Einstein or Hilter had been aborted, but maybe I'm watching the wrong television or something. And Margaret Sanger's views on eugenics are fairly widely circulated. She was also advocating them in the 1930s and 1940s. It's 2009 now, so because of something that somebody on the pro-choice side said in 1939, it's okay for pro-life Congressman Tiahrt to say what he said in 2009? You're in the weeds here.
July 19, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
You assume Desidero is arguing from a logical standpoint.
July 19, 2009 1:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do assume that because usually he is.
July 19, 2009 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, you cannot accurately predict any of those things, not for me or any other given individual. "Some circumstances where we can pretty well know..." isn't the same as an accurate prediction. It doesn't tell you squat about what any one person will or won't do.
Decision making and coin-flipping outcomes, while based on some probability (uncertainty), are binary in character. The coin will either come up heads, or come up tails, but not both at once. The probability of either outcome is 50-50, yet an outcome is never half-heads and half tails at once. Likewise, the probability for a teen mother to have an abortion is binary in any given instance. Even if the demographic odds were 90-10 in favor of her getting an abortion, there is no such thing as a 90% abortion decision. She either did, or did not have one.
The danger in using statistics to predict the decisions of any single individual is that the odds can make it appear that those mothers who chose not to have an abortion think or had motivating values identical to those who did. The half heads, half tails coin. Such notions are potentially slanderous when describing the behaviors of human beings.
Marketing departments, BTW, deal in statistically significant numbers of
customers, or numbers of instances in statistical terms. No marketing dept. can tell you just what any single target customer will do, they wish that they could, as such knowledge would save them the cost of mass advertising.
July 18, 2009 2:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are we in control of our own decisions?
July 18, 2009 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
An interesting presentation, thanks, for the link. The point of the presentation seemed to be that our cognitive perceptions can be tricked, just as our sensory perceptions can be. Such trickery might increase the probability that one choice will be made over another choice, but this still doesn't allow us to predetermine which choice will be made by a given individual.
An increased probability of some outcome (as long as it's not 100%) still doesn't permit us to accurately predict the outcome for any given single instance. For example, although the odds are well against drawing a joker from a full deck of cards this information doesn't enable the accurate prediction that the next card drawn won't be a joker.
July 18, 2009 11:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
I saw this, not having a life and having cable news on all day.
Just think, if w had died in one of his dui crashes,
we might be a free nation...ok but freer.
July 17, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just think, if w had died in one of his dui crashes,
You mean like Barack Obama Sr. did?
July 18, 2009 3:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
From Wikipedia, "Obama Sr. lost both legs in an automobile collision, and subsequently lost his job. He died in 1982, at the age of 46, in a car crash in Nairobi."
So, while we can agree that the first crash caused Obama, Sr. to lose his legs, it is unclear if the second crash was related to his use of alcohol. One might even suspect that, given his lack of legs, Obama, Sr. lacked the ability to drive in Nairobi. There is no reference to whether he was the driver, only that he was killed in the crash.
July 18, 2009 2:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
If Barack Obama's mother were still alive, the Republicans wouldn't believe her if she said she never considered abortion because her children were planned and wanted, regardless of her marital status. It wouldn't matter one iota what she or anyone else said. Why? Because the idiot who gave the examples of 2 -- TWO -- BLACK PEOPLE who are successful (imagine that!!!), who according to him, would have both been aborted if their mothers could have done it for free, doesn't listen anyway. I mean, what was his point? That black people would have abortions all the time if they were free? Or in Obama's case, that people who are white but have babies with black people would do so.
Does he think white people don't have abortions? Does he not realize that some of us fantasize about if the Bush's had either been sterile, or aborted their nasty spawn? Surely cost was not the issue with the Bush's -- they just never could have anticipated what losers they had birthed.
I would like to carry The Honorable Todd's brain diarrhea one step further: I WISH his mother had aborted HIM! The world would be a better place.
July 17, 2009 8:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what the chances are that she would have considered abortion if it had been legal or if it had been both legal and subsidized.
What I think I can say with some degree of confidence is that if Stanley Ann Dunham had gotten pregnant by Barack Sr. in today's world, she probably would not have married him but, if she decided to have the baby, would have had him on her own.
Considering that the President's father was a bigamous drunk who abandoned Ms. Dunham as soon as she became inconvenient, I can't actually say that not marrying him would have been a bad decision.
July 18, 2009 4:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
What you don't seem to understand is that you cannot say anything with any degree of confidence about what another person whom you have never met would have done.
All that you are doing is revealing how you think, and what you might have done. Speculation about what Stanley Ann Dunham, or anyone else whom you have never met or spoken with, is self-projection on your part.
July 18, 2009 9:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
Uh, Stanley Ann studied Anthropology, where you try to understand behaviors and attitudes of people, including some predictive analysis. Do you think Anthropology and Sociology and Psychology are all flawed, that people aren't predictable, that we can't estimate accurately how many people will show up at the driver's bureau the last day of the month, or say make predictions of political beliefs by rural Southerners? We're just all blank slates?
July 18, 2009 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
See my response above, regarding the misunderstanding of probabilistic systems.
July 18, 2009 12:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you refuse to acknowledge there are cultural trends that for some types of events are pretty definitive, instead treating everything as unknowable like Schroedinger's Cat, multiple universes, the cat is both dead and alive. Because what was the original statement, that the mothers "may have chosen abortion", and I put the demographic odds more specific.
Yes, Obama might easily have been aborted with today's attitude, same as lots of other unplanned pregnancies. Which proves what, abortion's bad? Could have been a Jeffrey Dahmer as well, now that's an unknowable probability exercise.
July 18, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
Kindly put, it is interesting to juxtapose your shrill offense at sometimes offensive attacks on Palin and her family and their choices last fall, with your complete lack of offense at some politician speculating about the private choices a dead woman might have made.
And echoing them yourself, very tastelessly. Your chin-scratching about generally unstated statistics, including the nonexistent hippie chick abortion demographic, doesn't make it more tasteful, or respectful of the particular dead woman. I can only imagine you if someone made a comparably stupid crack about Chelsea Clinton. As sure as I understand statistics too, it would be 0.00% likely that you'd be popping off about how their remark might be statistically valid.
It seems your strident archfeminism is a bit situational, and seems to run downhill toward all those annoying Obamabots. Or maybe it's just more of that mindlessly contrarian crap that left this site when Old Yeller did. Physician, heal thyself.
July 18, 2009 5:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
We build national policies around 17-year-old unwanted pregnancies. I defend Palin's right to choose. At the same time I can pretty much 100% predict what she will choose.
That "dead women" to whom you refer was trotted around the campaign trail so many times it makes my head spin. I didn't set out to learn about Obama's childhood - he wrote 2 books dealing with it. He invoked the actions and sentiments of his parents and his grandparents. So don't pretend that this is some kind of sacrilege to discuss her way of life, her choices, what I perceive of her attitudes from Barry's descriptions. And it's the ridicule by Obama supporters of Palin and her pregnant 17-year-old and that kid's choice that brought me originally to analyze the irony. And you ignore that the hippie-chick anthropology-bent multicultural attitudes demographic (and yes, there was definitely one in the 1960's) leads to more likelihood to keep and raise a half-black child than a 17-year-old girl from an all-white suburb with no strong religion, college on the way keeping a white baby. Look at pregnancy statistics on the latter. Perhaps you haven't considered the ramifications of easy abortions, but likely that kid's outta there. If that makes you queasy, better start going to anti-abortion rallies. Your choice.
Regarding Chelsea Clinton, I really know nothing about her attitudes to judge by, so less to judge on. I don't know how Christian she is, I don't know how much she's affected by Southern, DC and now New York culture, I don't know how focused she is on career vs. home life - see, she hasn't lived her whole life and there hasn't been a book and magazine articles describing her psyche and life choices and attitudes to date. But sure, white non-fundamentalist extremely well-connected girl with pro-choice parents (even if they describe the abortion choice as "tragic") headed to Stanford at 17 - if she were pregnant, there's no way in hell she's going to keep that kid. Just not going to happen. (The only reason I mention race is that both from my experience and what I think are general statistics, blacks are overall more conservative about abortion than whites, despite impressions to the contrary. If there are statistics or other evidence to say I'm wrong, I'm all ears.)
July 19, 2009 3:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Des wrote: "At the same time I can pretty much 100% predict what she will choose"
Des, for what will be the last time from me, no, you cannot 100% predict anything which has a less than 100% probability of occurrence. IN fact, you seem to realize this by having included the qualifier, "pretty much". To predict, means to predetermine, or see the future. The notion of a 100% accurate prediction of the outcome of any single instance is an illusion.
For example, if you were to predict that a coin-flip will come up heads, and so it does, it would be an illusion that you accurately predicted the outcome of that coin-flip. You did not see the future, you guessed correctly in that instance, but it was a guess. It's time for you to accept that you are wrong about this and move on. This is not my opinion, it is math.
July 19, 2009 12:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
In this electronic world where words have no consequences, you can say whatever you want with "some confidence". Saying doesn't make truth, and what you say in particular tells us a whole lot more about your character than it does about either of the Obamas. I'd suggest being ashamed of yourself was an appropriate behavior on your part, but I can't say with confidence that shame is something you can access within yourself.
July 18, 2009 9:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd suggest being ashamed of yourself was an appropriate behavior on your part ...
That's not going to happen, amike. Here's why.
July 18, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Turns out that Tiahrt is also a member of the "C" Street "Christian" family, ground zero in Republican sexcapades lately. Among other things, he is well known for his always perfectly coiffed hair.
The relevant part to this conversation can be found in Jeff Sharlet's book about "C" Street, The Family.**
Sharlet recounts a day when he was serving lunch in the House and Tiahrt shared with his fellow members a question that had been weighing heavily on his mind. That question was what would be the best way "for the Christian to win the race with the Muslim?" He went on to opine that Muslims have too many babies, and Americans kill too many of their own.
The "C" Street answer to his question is too convoluted to go into, but the question itself reveals why he is so deeply concerned over abortions. Apparently, it all has to do with winning a race.
I have no idea how Obama and Thomas got into the mix, but never mind. It's about a race for race.
For those interested in more Tiahrt glop, somebody has dedicated an entire blog to his ass-hatty self. The Idiot Factor: Todd Tiahrt's Folly.
**From page 29 of the paperback version (which I just happened to get this week). 2008, The Family, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY.
July 18, 2009 7:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why am I not surprised?
July 18, 2009 9:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
Yep. Guys like Tiahrt don't stray far from the reservation (unless suffering from a weird mental disorder that mistakes the AP for a therapist, thus giving us details of hiking the Argentina trail), and seldom let us down.
July 18, 2009 9:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm reminded of a saying from the early 1970s:
. Seems "find and replace" could resurrect that saying. Taihrt has one more letter, but who cares?July 18, 2009 9:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
It's why women don't like to date Republicans anymore, amike. They never know when to withdraw.
:-)
July 18, 2009 9:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks, for the tip regarding Glaivester.
July 18, 2009 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Gee, let's see now, Barack Obama and Clarence Thomas. What key characteristic do these two men share that the Rep. used them, and ONLY them, in his example of successful people who might have been aborted if abortion was free of cost? The connection eludes me.
Tiahrt seemed completely oblivious to his bigotry. Douchebag.
July 18, 2009 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Can I think of any more diameterically opposite personalities then Obama and Thomas? No!
July 18, 2009 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks seashell for background info. Does explain a lot about some of the trolls around here.
As far as people who would have been aborted, if it were free. Abortions have been free in this country for hundreds of years, in back allies and board houses of low income communites across the nation. It's only the rich that paid huge amounts for abortions, while they quietly went back to their pompous lives of judging others!
July 18, 2009 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Seriously. I checked out the Glaiveser site and it seems to be poorly written and distastefully racist. Wish I had those couple of minutes back.
July 18, 2009 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink