The Democrats’ Biggest Lie

 

we-lie-a-lot

There
are white lies.  There are ordinary lies.  There are big lies.  Then there are lies that are so huge that it is difficult for a rational
person to believe that such a lie has been attempted. ~ Larrey Anderson

The left’s
talking points about the GOP, contraception, and women in America in the
year 2012 are based on the biggest [i] lie of our century: the GOP is attempting to ban contraception in America.

This lie cannot stand examination. 
The left lies about Social Security reform, unemployment numbers, the
state of the economy, global warming, etc.  The list is long.  The
script is methodical and boring.  The politicians who deliver the lines
of that script are boorish. 

The assertion that the GOP is
attempting to deny women contraception at the state level is so
absurd and so heinous that the Party must not be silent.  It must not
sit quietly or offer up tepid rebuttals.  The GOP must respond loudly
and rationally.  It must do so now.

Before
we examine the reasons why this lie is blatantly egregious, let’s look
at one instance of the peddling of this pernicious propaganda.  The
example chosen is a recent press release from KCBS — the CBS affiliate in San Francisco. 

The title of the release is “Women’s Health Forum At SFSU Focuses On Access To Contraceptives.”  [Emphasis added.]  Here is the opening paragraph:

SAN FRANCISCO – A women’s health forum held Thursday at San Francisco State University focused on the timely topic of access to contraceptives. Advocates equated the recent debates on the issue to watching a battle won 50 years ago being waged again. [Emphases added.]

This
is propaganda as defined and practiced by Joseph Goebbels.  (The
numbers that follow are from Leonard Doob’s numeration of Goebbels’
propaganda methods. 

Doob’s system has become something of a standard
for monitoring and explaining propaganda.  The system and Doob’s
rationale for creating that system are here.  An abbreviated version is here.)

[6]
“Propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be
transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.”  The
conference was held in a leftist university setting before a group of
concerned women — an audience predisposed to trust the word of the
speakers.  The event received radio (and other media) coverage.

[7] “Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.”  The reporter defined access to contraception as a “timely topic.” 
Thus, giving the false premise of the story credibility.  The “news”
was tainted and biased from the first sentence of the story.  

(As we saw
above, even the title of the release was biased.)

In the second line
the reporter attempts to establish her objectivity by distancing herself
from the “advocates.”  Yet it is crystal-clear that the reporter has
chosen to report as factual a fabricated issue.

[12] “Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.”  This press release was posted
on the website of Democrat Congresswoman Jackie Speier — one of the
speakers at this conference. 

With the requisite rhetorical vagueness
practiced by the members of Congress who can only be described as subversive — rather than progressive — Congresswoman Speier couched her remarks to those assembled this way:

There have been 1,100 bills introduced across this country to reduce sources for women as it relates to their health.  80[ii] of them have been signed into law.  This is an unprecedented assault on women’s health and the status of women in this country.  [Emphases added.]

Only
one part of this sweeping accusation is in some sense true.  There
probably are 1,100 bills that address, and possibly impact, funding for
health issues — whether it be health issues for all adults (e.g., Medicaid) or health issues limited to women.  It would be surprising if this were not the case.

When
I was chairman of the Health and Welfare Committee in the Idaho State
Senate, our committee handled at least twenty of what could be called
“women’s health care” proposals each session.  (E.g., almost every
Medicaid bill contained someas originally written.  verbiage about women’s health
care.)  About 25% of the proposals made it to the floor for a vote, and
perhaps 5% (probably less) became laws

States
with larger populations usually see more of these bills.  An average of
only 22 bills per state equals 1,100 bills.  If anything, the
congresswoman has lowballed the numbers of bills that, in some fashion,
touch on women’s health concerns. 

Most states are cutting, and some
have already cut, budgets in many areas that receive state financing — certainly not just programs that affect “women’s health.” 

Speier’s express
thesis, that the states are “reducing sources” for women’s health
programs, is not a GOP plot or even a shift in the GOP’s political
ideology — it is economic survival.  One hopes, economic survival
is not a province solely of Republicans.

More
important, if a controversial bill (on a women’s health issue — e.g.,
abortion) was introduced in our committee, this guaranteed that the
opposition of that bill would have a counter-proposal, and so would
those seeking middle ground. 

Some of those groups would split and
propose other bills, etc.  We might see five proposals on abortion from several different angles in a single year.  And the House of Representatives had a different set of competing proposals! 

Yet I never
saw a bill limiting, let alone banning, contraception for adults.  As chairman of the germane committee, I saw every bill that dealt with
the issue of contraception.  I’ll explain why there was no such
legislation in a moment.

The expected nonspecific insinuations are there in Speier’s speech.  The congresswoman said nothing and made it sound like something. 
Truth is used when convenient. 

The message broadcast from the
conference was this: there is an avalanche of legislation concerning
women’s health care (true — because it is true every year for all
health issues) that is turning back the clock (false) by denying women
contraception (false). 

In
this propaganda, the last clause is true only if “contraception” is
universally redefined as “women’s health issues.”  In other words,
“reduced access to contraception” means “reduction in any women’s health
program.”  That is the switch in the press release. 

Speier doesn’t
say that 1,100 bills reducing or banning contraception
have been introduced.  She said, “There have been 1,100 bills
introduced … to reduce sources for women as it [sic] relates to their
health.”  The title of the piece — as it appears on her website — uses the word “contraception.” 

Before she is quoted in the piece, the topic is explicitly stated
to be contraception.  The congresswoman said “reduced sources.”  Which
sources?  The logical and emotional conclusion is: contraceptive
sources.

[14a]
“Propaganda must be boomerang-proof.”  If the opposition can be
confused about the definition of the terms, that opposition can provide
no rational rebuttal; there is no “blowback” to the proponent.  That’s
why “contraception” must no longer be limited to preventing pregnancies,
but rather broadened to all “women’s health issues.” 

The overreaching
generalities in this press release were put there on purpose.  The
congresswoman cannot be accused of claiming that these 1,100 bills will
reduce or ban contraception.  She doesn’t say it — the media does the dirty work for her.

As
Goebbels also taught

[16a], “[p]ropaganda must reinforce anxiety
concerning the consequences of defeat.”  The women who left the
conference, or who read the press release, have been purposely
deceived.  They have, in effect, been told that there are 1,100
Republican-sponsored bills destined to take away their contraception. 
This is a lie.  The lie is cloaked in unconscionable dissimulation.  The
dissimulation drives the propaganda. 

Proving
that the GOP cannot limit access to contraception at the state level is
easy.  Unlike the left, I will define my terms.  “Contraception: (noun)
the deliberate use of artificial methods or other techniques to prevent pregnancy as a consequence of sexual intercourse.”  [Emphasis added.]

Let’s
go one step further.  Contraception is from two Latin words.  “Contra” =
“against,” and “ception” = a shortened form of “conception.”  This
confirms the common usage and definition of the term “contraception.” 
By definition, and according to the etymology, contraception is something that is used before conception.  As a contrast, abortion, by definition, cannot be contraception.

On the issue of state control of contraception, women have nothing to fear.  It has long been unconstitutional for any state to prohibit access to contraceptive methods, techniques, or devices when used by adults. 

Here
is why.  In the early 1960s, a married Connecticut couple went to their
local Planned Parenthood office and asked for advice about abortion. 
They received a prescription for contraceptives.  At that time,
Connecticut had a state law that prohibited the use of contraceptives. 
In 1965 the Supreme Court, in Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, held the Connecticut law unconstitutional
[iii].

No
state can prohibit the sale of contraceptives.  This should be the end
of the argument; everything written either asserting or implying that
the GOP can or will ban contraceptives is a lie.  For once,
just once, the GOP should stand up and, with every resource available to
the Party, expose this propaganda and the politicians pitching it for
what it is…a lie coming from liars.

Larrey Anderson is a writer, a philosopher, and senior editor for American Thinker.  He is the author of the award-winning novel The Order of the Beloved and the memoir Underground.  He is working on a new book, The Death of Culture.

 


[i] The contraceptive lie is “bigger” than the AGW myth because the contraceptive lie is blatant and patent.

[ii]
For the most part, the 80 bills that have passed are attempts to
prevent financing the sexual conveniences of some people with the money
of other people. 

These bills deal with insurance and/or state payments,
in the form of transfers from one party to another, for various aspects
of birth control and abortion.  (The left’s talking point exception is an Arizona bill that limits late-term abortions.  Seven other legislatures have passed similar bills in the last two years.)

[iii] I do not agree with the logic that the Court used to reach its finding.  I do agree with the outcome.  The arguments in Griswold
are tortured and contorted, to say the least.  The Court should have
relied on the Fifth Amendment: “No person shall … be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process.” 

If anything qualifies as
“property,” it is a person’s body.  We have the liberty to use that
property.  All (sane) adults offer or accept legal contracts for the use
of their bodies.  It happens all the time. 

Two examples: (A) A person
hired for a job contracts with another person for the some type of use
of his or her body and mind.  Marriage, at least according to the law
and longstanding legal tradition, is a contract for the shared use of
the married parties’ bodies. 

(See Blackstone’s Commentaries,
Book 1, Chapter 15, Section 1.  This famous legal commentary was written
just before our Revolutionary War.) 

This right of the person, when
viewed as property, like any right, is not unlimited.  Some of my objections to Griswold, and a brief positive argument for another approach, are here.

 

Larrey Anderson – April 16, 2012 – AmericanThinker

 

 

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