Well, calling us “Sanctimonium supporters” doesn't exactly bring out the best in us... ;-)
Seriously, however, read my last post and this one.
Every candidate has their “-bots.” I am a conservative evangelical who supports Santorum, not because I think he's ideal or perfect, but because he's the best candidate left. I'm painfully aware of problems with some of his views and votes. He's not the best person out there, but I think he's better than Newt Gingrich and a **WHOLE** lot better than Mitt Romney or Ron Paul.
However, I could make a long list of my problems with Santorum, too, and some of them might be things on which you and I agree.
This, however, isn't among them:
78 posted on Friday, February 10, 2012 12:37:41 AM by true believer forever: “So, I guess Sanctimonium is saying his approach to marriage and parenthood, is to basically let the woman do all that women’s work... while he’s out with the posse doing important man’s work in DC... what a jerk!”
It's pretty clear that Rick Santorum defends traditional male and female roles. No surprise there.
I don't discuss most personal family details on the internet, but I've seen firsthand the ugly face of male bigotry against women, and while it was worse decades ago, it's not gone yet. I have decades of history as a conservative arguing that women who want to work in a man's world have every right to do so, but then they can't demand the standards be lowered to let women in.
I believe that's a choice every woman should have, but not one they should be forced into.
Lots of women would rather stay home and be wives and mothers. That's fine, too. My wife happens to be both highly educated — two masters degrees and a doctoral degree — and highly successful in her business. That's her choice, but we would not impose that choice on others.
What's sad is that liberalism claims to give women choices when it actually demeans the choices that lots of women would prefer.
I think I see Santorum saying women should have the right to choose to be at home if they want to do so. Seems like a good idea to me, and one which will resonate with many conservative women.
88 posted on Friday, February 10, 2012 12:57:11 AM by AmericanInTokyo: “Wasn’t the woman taken by the Iraqi Army in the opening salvo of the war, captured, and then RAPED??”
95 posted on Friday, February 10, 2012 1:20:47 AM by true believer forever: “Jessica Lynch, she was a tiny little blonde thing... and I don’t think the military ever published that she was raped, and I don’t know if she said that in her book. My assumption would be that she was raped... she might not have wanted to say so...”
I don't think American in Tokyo meant Jessica Lynch. If he's thinking of the first Gulf War, he's basically right about what happened to a flight surgeon after a crash.
Her case got very little publicity at the time, in significant measure because of concerns to respect her privacy and also political concerns that American public opinion would be greatly inflamed when we were trying to hold a coalition together to back our liberation of Kuwait. If it had become widely known that an American officer was sexually assaulted after her capture, I'm not convinced that President George H.W. Bush could have prevented a massive outcry demanding that we go all the way to Baghdad to throw out Saddam Hussein. Hindsight is 20-20 and maybe that would have been a good thing, but considering the political realities in the Arab world in the late 1980s and early 1990s, nobody knows what would have happened if the coalition had fragmented and we had lost our basing locations in Saudi Arabia. Logistically, we were in a much better position to do what we did in the second Gulf War when we could rely on basing locations in Kuwait, but even then we had to deal with political problems from Turkey.
Years later, I heard her give a lecture on the subject at a conference for women's mental health issues in the military. I forget now whether she was a general or a colonel when she gave her speech, but the key point is she stayed in the military and worked to help women deal with issues related to serving in the military.
Good for her. Lots of women and men would never remain in the service after an experience like that, and I wouldn't blame them for that decision.
One qualification: “sexually assaulted” would be a better word for what I heard happened to her. However, she may not have wanted to go into more details in a public forum, and what she said was bad enough.
Apparently that statement was just a load of bull chips. You gave it a valiant effort though.
first, you are right about calling you guys sanctimonium supporters, but he is just such a pompous ass sometimes... and nobody likes being lectured to, whether it’s by Michelle Obama or Rick Santorum... (there, said it the right way)... REpublicans get really critical and down on Michelle for telling people how to treat their bodies, and Santorum - said it the right way twice - tells people how to treat their souls and their hearts, and most importantly their spirits... and if you are a true christian, the way he abrogates the work of Christ with his gospel of works and pharisee’s spirit, is really distateful and anathema to many many christians..
Yes, I agree about women and the dignity and valor of raising children... I don’t even disagree with Santorum - about that, or his military statements... he just speaks to his base with this stuff - to prove something, or stroke them, like a few days in CO when James Dobson was up on stage with him, and Santorum said, “God called me to run”... I just think that is way over the top...
And finally, if she is who I am thinking it is, I think she was a pilot, and maybe her name was Flynn, but whoever that particular person, I remember reading a book she wrote later, where she described what happened, and said she just closed her eyes, and couldn’t believe what was happening to her... and she also said women are taught ways to cope with that type of assault by dissociative mechanisms they can learn... all in all, she was really very clinical about it... it stayed with me for some reason. She was brave and yet very vulnerable at the same time...