Thursday, January 22, 2009

Gag Rule

I majored in Economics and minored in Political Science. I admit that I did far better academically in Political Science than Economics, mainly because I found the material fascinating.

So I admit that it was embarrassing many years later to learn about the Gag Rule not from my formal education in Politics, but instead on The West Wing -- that liberal reshaping of America in which an "egg-headed" liberal runs the United States and all conservatives are sexist, racist, homophobes bent on destroying the Bartlett Administration and America through sheer blundering. If I am revealing my political persuasion too much, you'll have to forgive me.

The West Wing was designed to take current issues and expose them on the weekly program, so perhaps I am being a little too hard on myself when Aaron Sorkin has an inside track to these issues.

I am a veteran of the United States Air Force and a father. As such I believe our citizens owe their freedom to those right now fighting overseas. Not only that, I believe that our young men are all potentially draftable to defend our way of life. However I also believe that our freedom of speech and our freedom to protest are invaluable to our independence and part of what makes us the greatest nation in the history of the world.

As such, the practice of supporting abortion overseas through public funds (TAXPAYER MONEY) is an absolutely insidious and evil practice. While there have been those convicted of tax evasion for refusing to pay taxes that go toward a war or military spending (which I can respect despite being a veteran), this is the precise opposite. I never knew that the government even conducted this practice, and there are MILLIONS opposed to EVER paying for this.

This specialized Gag Rule is the Presidential Order barring the discussion by State Department officials and taxpayer funding of groups overseas to provide funding for Abortion as part of "Reproductive Services" predominately in Third World countries, where people cannot afford medical services.

Barack Obama promised to remove this specialized Gag Rule, and to restore Partial Birth abortion the moment he became President. Now that he has has taken the Oath of Office (and flubbed it), he has the authority to create an Executive Order that reverses the Gag Rule. This means (if you are a taxpayer in the United States), that whether you are against Abortion or ambivalent about it nationally but against it personally, YOUR MONEY is being used to "provide reproductive services" to drastically poor and uninformed people living in a Third World country. Don't believe me? Please feel free to look it up. Oh, and watch in the alternative media for an announcement sometime this week. It is very likely that the main stream media will not want to say a word about this particular Executive Order, as they want to protect Obama for as long as they can.

This one time, I have to thank Aaron Sorkin, Martin Sheen, and Rob Lowe for telling me more about the underside of American policy than the university that was supposed to educate me.

1 comment:

Fishinbear said...

This should not be surprising. The people in Hollyweird who advocate leadership by celebrity have been steadily exorcising any semblance of conservative values from all movie screens and television airwaves for many years now. Now that West Wing has gone off, we have Brothers and Sisters, with Sally Field providing angst-ridden guidance for her brood in the face of this horrible world that includes those most awful of creatures, conservatives!

If that isn't liberal enough for you, go to the movies and watch Milk. Then you can watch the Oscars and see Sean Penn go into a political rant. At least this time he wasn't beating up paparazzi.

It makes me wonder what happened to Michael Moore. I thought he was the darling of the liberal celebrity cause. What have you done for the left lately, Michael?

All of this just serves to illustrate why I prefer to watch old movies, either on TV or DVD. The Glitter Machine is busily running the mainstream majority out of the theaters. They think that just because they keep making propaganda like Brokeback Mountain that everyone is going to magically change their values.

But then, this goes with the liberal view that the only reason people don't agree with you is because they haven't allowed you to harangue them with your party line long enough. They hold this view because they believe also that everyone's values and morals are situational because theirs are.

The liberal media doesn't need a Gag Rule to help their causes. They do so out of hand at any opportunity. When we had a Republican president, there was no talk about gagging opinionated radio shows. Now that the Liberals are in power, it is said that every channel on TV and every radio station must provide equal time to opposing views. Did Constance Dogood provide equal time for the British? Does NPR ever give equal time to conservatives? Don't make me laugh!

The Fairness Doctrine was developed in an America with limited radio and television stations. Any given community might have only one or two TV stations and two or three radio stations. In the extremely rare markets that still have this situation for free-air broadcasts, this might still make sense. However, I have only come across one such community in the past ten years.

The Fairness Doctrine is a relic of bygone times when access to the airwaves was limited. Such is not the case now and, besides, the internet will eclipse broadcast media within the next ten years anyway.