Exactly. "I thought -I- would be allowed to get an abortion when I needed to, because I'm not evil or poor like the babykillers I talk about in church. I'm a good person - it's just a baby would ruin my life (usually = disclose my cheating/premarital sex/be inconvenient) so it's different." It's the classic "rules for thee but not for me" of extremists.
A majority of conservatives in WWII Germany also claimed to not be aware that millions of innocent people were being exterminated. Conservatives do two things consistently... They harm others and they deny it.
Only one of my ten Nazi friends saw Nazism as we—you and I—saw it in any respect. This was Hildebrandt, the teacher. And even he then believed, and still believes, in part of its program and practice, “the democratic part.” The other nine, decent, hard-working, ordinarily intelligent and honest men, did not know before 1933 that Nazism was evil. They did not know between 1933 and 1945 that it was evil. And they do not know it now. None of them ever knew, or now knows, Nazism as we knew and know it; and they lived under it, served it, and, indeed, made it.
As we know Nazism, it was a naked, total tyranny which degraded its adherents and enslaved its opponents and adherents alike; terrorism and terror in daily life, private and public; brute personal and mob injustice at every level of association; a flank attack upon God and a frontal attack upon the worth of the human person and the rights which that worth implies. These nine ordinary Germans knew it absolutely otherwise, and they still know it otherwise. If our view of National Socialism is a little simple, so is theirs. An autocracy? Yes, of course, an autocracy, as in the fabled days of “the golden time” our parents knew. But a tyranny, as you Americans use the term? Nonsense.
When I asked Herr Wedekind, the baker, why he had believed in National Socialism, he said, “Because it promised to solve the unemployment problem. And it did. But I never imagined what it would lead to. Nobody did.” I thought I had struck pay dirt, and I said, “What do you mean, ‘what it would lead to,’ Herr Wedekind?” “War,” he said. “Nobody ever imagined it would lead to war.”
The evil of National Socialism began on September 1, 1939; and that was my friend the baker.
Remember—none of these nine Germans had ever traveled abroad (except in war); none had ever known or talked with a foreigner or read the foreign press; none ever wanted to listen to the foreign radio when it was legal to do so, and none (except, oddly enough, the policeman) listened to it when it was illegal. They were as uninterested in the outside world as their contemporaries in France—or America. None of them ever heard anything bad about the Nazi regime except, as they believed, from Germany’s enemies, and Germany’s enemies were theirs. “Everything the Russians and the Americans said about us,” said Cabinetmaker Klingelhöfer, “they now say about each other.”
Men think first of the lives they lead and the things they see; and not, among the things they see, of the extraordinary sights, but of the sights which meet them in their daily rounds. The lives of my nine friends—and even of the tenth, the teacher—were lightened and brightened by National Socialism as they knew it. And they look back at it now—nine of them, certainly—as the best time of their lives; for what are men’s lives? There were jobs and job security, summer camps for the children and the Hitler Jugend to keep them off the streets. What does a mother want to know? She wants to know where her children are, and with whom, and what they are doing. In those days she knew or thought she did; what difference does it make? So things went better at home, and when things go better at home, and on the job, what more does a husband and father want to know? The best time of their lives.
There were wonderful ten-dollar holiday trips for the family in the “Strength through Joy” program, to Norway in the summer and Spain in the winter, for people who had never dreamed of a real holiday trip at home or abroad. And in Kronenberg “nobody” (nobody my friends knew) went cold, nobody went hungry, nobody went ill and uncared for. For whom do men know? They know people of their own neighborhood, of their own station and occupation, of their own political (or nonpolitical) views, of their own religion and race. All the blessings of the New Order, advertised everywhere, reached “everybody.”
There were horrors, too, but these were advertised nowhere, reached “nobody.” Once in a while (and only once in a while) a single crusading or sensation-mongering newspaper in America exposes the inhuman conditions of the local county jail; but none of my friends had ever read such a newspaper when there were such in Germany (far fewer there than here), and now there were none. None of the horrors impinged upon the day-to-day lives of my ten friends or was ever called to their attention. There was “some sort of trouble” on the streets of Kronenberg as one or another of my friends was passing by on a couple of occasions, but the police dispersed the crowd and there was nothing in the local paper. You and I leave “some sort of trouble on the streets” to the police; so did my friends in Kronenberg.
Except, here in the US, the neo-nazis aren't even concerned with making their constituents' lives better. They make them as bad as they possibly can, and their cult still doesn't believe it
That was a terrible read, but thank you for posting it. It lines up with exactly what I'm seeing now: a sheer and utter lack of being informed. You see it in every poll of what people think, it's incredible.
This is surely before they started rounding off Jews right? I find it impossible to "not know" such a thing is happening without some cognitive dissonance going on
Given that abortion has been banned in the state for two years, one would think people would be aware that, well, abortion has been banned in the state for two years — but 73 percent of those surveyed incorrectly believed that abortions were still available at abortion clinics in the state. Twenty-one percent believed that people were still regularly getting abortions at those clinics.
Goddamn. Maybe those republiQan women weren't evil, just ignorant as hell?
I've said this plenty and people tend to agree with me even if their first reaction is to fight me on it, conservative women are some of the most if not the most stupid people in the US. At least conservative men have something to gain by voting the way they do, but conservative women literally vote to get their own rights taken away.
I don't even say this trying to be mean, I wish they got what they deserved and by that I mean healthcare, education and whatever social program they needed to be happy and safe. Unfortunately they constantly vote against me wanting the best for them.
There was a brief record scratch moment when the abortion ban stuff happened, but the trumpers I know got right back on the bandwagon and are now talking "white replacement theory."
"I don't need to vote. People will never let Trump get elected."
Wanna bet she will never change her mind on this stance either? Like, "Yes, Trump got elected once, but people won't let him get elected again, so I don't need to vote."
Ugh, I am getting angry at this straw man of your wife's mother now.
There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.
Sounds like a direct quote from George W Bush, which is a fucked up version of the original idiom: "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."
Because they don't even know it's a problem. That is the conclusion of the survey. I feel like this is a prime opportunity for an information campaign:
"This woman has an entropic pregnancy"
Clip of a doctor briefly explaining what an entropic pregnancy is and how they are always unviable.
"She was denied an abortion in Texas and would have died if she did not go to a different state that still allows abortions. Here is where you can read the court case."
This sounds like a failure on Democrats to get information out.
Yes, we all know Republicans like to keep people ignorant, but this should be a slam dunk informational campaign for the Democrats: "here is a case where a woman needed and really should have been given an abortion. She was denied. Here is where you can find the court case."
I'm certain the Democrats have purposely put off abortion rights and housing prices so they can promise something for the next election. I don't even think Biden has really talked about abortion in any meaningful way between his election and last March.
Too many Democrats still think their copilot is a rational actor and not a coked out gorilla. Reaching across the aisle hasn't been an option for at least a decade but the democrats want to just act like the coked out gorilla holding the other yoke is willing to go back to a pre-Reagan era of collaborative legislation. We need to vote the republican party out of relevance, and then vote the apologist democrats out if relevance to so we can get some actual election reform
I'm all for blaming Dems for being ineffectual cowards but this is one topic they have been very happy to shout about. As the artice points out, the media does not have to report it:
There’s also the fact that we have a very divided media and the media a lot of people get — and, more importantly, trust — does not tell them about things like this.
This isn’t exactly surprising. With over 60% of Americans busting ass at multiple low paying jobs just to scrape by living paycheck to paycheck, many don’t have time to stay informed on political developments, even major ones such as this.
I don’t understand. I need an abortion, why can’t I get one? But I’m going to die! But the baby is guaranteed to be stillborn, and I’m still gonna die! So I’m sentenced to death?!