Wednesday, October 08, 2014

Abortion: Another Issue In The Vast, Bayeux Tapestry Of Shit About Which

DFB3

David Brooks does not have the slightest fucking clue.

From the awful, awkward lump of attic insulation called "The Conversation" which the NYT still adamantly refuses to let slouch off under a porch and die quietly:

Gail: I noticed that Senator Ted Cruz called the Supreme Court’s decision to take no action “judicial activism at its worst.” Still more proof that the best definition of judicial activism is: “any decision I don’t like.” 
David: I can’t help pointing out that this is exactly what the court did not do with Roe v. Wade. Instead of letting events take shape, the court arrogantly stopped debate and froze the two sides into extreme polarities. Such a bad decision, even from a pro-choice perspective. I suspect you disagree.
This really is a small, perfect example of the filthy little scam David Brooks has been running on other people's dime for the last 20 years or so:  rendering* smarmy, privileged judgement from his gated suburban sensory-deprivation tank not based on any actual knowledge of "fact" or "history", but simply guided by what his badly warped, ideological compass tells him, all while insisting -- " Such a bad decision, even from a pro-choice perspective" -- that he is merely rending the reasonable, Centrist position on whatever it is he is fapping  about today.

To her, credit, Gail Collins ruins today's very special episode of  David Brooks' Neverending Bullshit Cavalcade by spilling facts all over it and reminding him that unlike, say, David Brooks's daughter there are millions of women in this country for whom the solution to their every medical and reproductive care need is not having a rich Daddy in a Blue State who can spirit them away to a land of friendly doctors and Concierge Health Care Service should they ever need it:
Gail: Give that man a cigar! You’re right, David. I totally disagree.

If states had been left to their own devices over the last few decades, I doubt very much you’d have seen the legislatures in, say, Texas or Mississippi, gradually coming around. Today, instead of eight clinics operating in Texas, there’d be none. Women in Mississippi who now have to travel to Jackson would probably have to find their way to New York or California. That’s not much of a problem for women with assets, but it’s the end of all options for the poor.

Abortion is exactly the kind of issue that requires the Supreme Court’s intervention. It involves a critical right; it’s politically toxic in many parts of the country and as a practical matter it mainly has an impact on the poor.
Scalded, Mr. Brooks scuttles away to his favorite all-purpose, Both Sider fallback position.  The one in which in which the world is divided into two, imaginary groups of people.  Both imaginary groups are equally and oppositely unreasonable.  David Brooks heroically disagrees with both imaginary groups, thus setting himself up as the only Serious Person in the argument.  
David: In any case, my overall point is that it’s always a mistake to trust people with dispositions that are permanent.

Gail: People who permanently have a disposition?

David: What I mean is that people who are always hyperactive will be terrible in certain circumstances and people who are always cautious will be terrible in others. The only people you can trust are those who let their means be governed by their circumstances.
It's a cheap and transparent lie and in my opinion, the condition of Mr. Brooks' immortal soul could be much improved if he were immediately slapped in the face every time he tried to float it.

Unfortunately Ms. Collins does not care about the condition of Mr. Brooks' immortal soul, which is kinda sad. 

*Thanks for the correction!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Doug at Balloon Juice once said, paraphasing: "the only good outcome of a Gail Collins/David Brooks conversation would be a murder suicide."

Normally, this statement is completely accurate. I'm glad Collins stepped up and cast a glimmer of doubt on it for once.

Brooks's "Roe was a bad case for pro-choicers too!" is a classic entry in his catalog of trying-to-sound-reasonable-but-actually-saying-something-batshit faux-centrist horse shit that is aimed at promoting the braindead far right agenda that he is still, always and forever, carrying water for.

Redhand said...

David: What I mean is that people who are always hyperactive will be terrible in certain circumstances and people who are always cautious will be terrible in others. The only people you can trust are those who let their means be governed by their circumstances.

Does anyone challenge my observation that this is pure gibberish? * * * Anyone? It is so vague that it means absolutely nothing.

Seriously, "The only people you can trust are those who let their means be governed by their circumstances?"

WTF is he trying to say? Only the rich can and should be allowed to have abortions, because only they can afford it, in which case shouldn't it be, ". . . who let their circumstances be governed by their means"?

Contrariwise, in the best Tweedledee and Tweedledum style, The poor shouldn't be allowed to have abortions because they don't have the means?

To me DFB here is like an octopus surprised by an adversary who is trying to escape be expelling a cloud of ink (or should I say bullshit)?

Neo Tuxedo said...

I think Gail Collins owes you royalties. Compare Gail's remarks...

If states had been left to their own devices over the last few decades, I doubt very much you’d have seen the legislatures in, say, Texas or Mississippi, gradually coming around. Today, instead of eight clinics operating in Texas, there’d be none. Women in Mississippi who now have to travel to Jackson would probably have to find their way to New York or California. That’s not much of a problem for women with assets, but it’s the end of all options for the poor.

Abortion is exactly the kind of issue that requires the Supreme Court’s intervention. It involves a critical right; it’s politically toxic in many parts of the country and as a practical matter it mainly has an impact on the poor.


...with our host from the linked post...

“The centrist majority?” Just like slavery was settled amicably by the Missouri Compromises II, III and IV?

Or was the Jim Crow Apartheid that rotted away in the Red States for a hundred years after the Civil War whisked away by a “series of state-by-state compromises” and I just didn’t notice? Segregation? The ban on interracial marriage? And the ban on teaching Evolution?

Transpose any other basic civil rights issue onto the template BoBo proposes as the reasonable alternative to Kwazy Judicial Activism and the texture and density of the shit that he is packed with jumps right out at you.


...and the main difference is that DG, not being constrained by the decorum of Even the Liberal New York Times*, can call bullshit bullshit.

(* Remember, they whittled Our Molly's "a beer-gut that belongs in the Smithsonian" down to "a protuberant abdomen" or something equally bloodless.)

Horace Boothroyd III said...

Such a bad decision? Fuck that noise! Roe v Wade was not A compromise it was THE compromise: first trimester the woman decides, second trimester there be restrictions, third trimester only for serious health concerns. Anything less would be superfluous, anything more would be officious pecksniffs micromanaging the private lives of strangers.

Good to hear about somebody on the teevee smacking that crap down.

Lex Alexander said...

With respect, DG, although "rending" would work, I think the word you wanted was rendering. In Brooks's case, think of it as rendering in the slaughterhouse sense. :-)