Monday, November 06, 2006

Bill O'Reilly (Fox media mogul and anti-choice -- I'm not linking to him out of complete disdain) referenced on national television that he has seen and reviewed patient records from 2 clinics (clinics that among other services provide abortions) in Kansas. The clinics claim that the records were recently released to Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline. The clinics are charging Kline with sharing these records with O'Reilly.
One of the clinics in question has already been a victim of violence -- the clinic was bombed in 1985 and the primary doctor was shot in 1992.
The leak of this information makes the patients and doctors vulernable to harm and violates privacy. I will not get into the irony of the (religious) right's platform -- it is full of inconsistencies. I will leave it at this -- it is disgusting and dangerous and I hope American's use their vote tomorrow to do something about it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Eli –

Just a few questions on this post in the name of spirited and friendly discussion…

Do you mean the Republican platform? I’m not aware of a specific platform that covers all of the political beliefs of those who would refer to themselves as on the right—even quite frankly all those who would consider themselves both religious and right and therefore technically part of the religious right.

Is it the right's *platform* that is full of inconsistencies? Or is it the actions of some who speak on behalf of the platform that are inconsistent with the platform itself? Are there not some who speak on behalf of the (atheist) left’s platform whose actions are equally as inconsistent with that platform?

You've placed “religious” in parentheses implying that there is something also inconsistent, disgusting, and dangerous with the non-religious right’s platform. Is this what you mean to imply?

Anonymous said...

Sorry, one other question came to mind after my first post, do you consider the entire platform of the right disgusting and dangerous or just specific parts of that platform?

Eli Stefanski said...

Oh JB, you are definitely going to make me a smarter blogger -- I am for sure guilty of throwing out gross generalizations in an effort to use common rhetoric and get out my thoughts quickly. However, a more thoughtful blogger would understand that the nomanclature chosen was indeed loaded, and a smart statement requires words chosen carefully, deliberately, to achieve the greatest clarity. This has alwasy been the separation between me and academics.


I am torn between responding to your questions direclty and giving a broader overview on how I would envision my own personal platform. My understanding is when you think about issues, I probably come across as very left. Yet, from a systems perspective I think we share many common beliefs. I think I will the latter for my next post and focus here on getting the language right.

I do not believe that the republican platform and the religious right are the same -- poor word choice obviously. I believe that there is a political group that have chosen to use their political platform to advance an anti-choice agenda based on religiously guided beliefs (and again, digging into whether morally driven beliefs and religiously guided beliefs are the same is another debate). I do believe that that it is a non-universal generalization, and in that high probability and high relevance, that that constituency leans to the right and to the republicans.


I do believe that using the political system to realize relgious beliefs is dangerous. I believe in the separation of church and state.

And it is that defintion that I've assumed to define the religious right. While I appreciate the separation of the religious and the atheist, I intended the use to be solely applied to a political candidate who uses the political system to transform their religious beliefs into policy.

I find inconsistencies to be disgusting -- because it demonstrates the lack of integrity and credibility, the two characteristics that I admire almost above all others in people. And inconsistencies exist across all political platforms. Obviously, where they disgust me the most is where they do damage to my personal beliefs. If individuals individuals acting in their self interest will create optimal results for the country:

why would you prevent women from making the choices that are in their self interest?

why would you create definitional standards for what marriage can and can't be? in that case why would you define marriage as the lifelong union between and a man and a female and not try to outlaw divorce?

why would you verbally defend a women's access to birth control and vote against it in policy?

These are issues that I not only care about, I feel that these reflect the inconsistencies that jeopardize the belief that people can make self-interested decisions that result in optimal conditions.

My call to action was very much left-oriented, but I'm not such a leftist; I simply feel that we need to protect a few simple abilities and my call to action was to support those folks who will protec them.

Is it the person or the platform? If there was a strong voice arising from the platform, renouncing support for a person who is using the platform, then I would say it is the person. Because there is complete silence from the platform, I am standing by my statement that it is a platform.

Did you ever read Crime and Punishment? In it, Dostoyevsky plays with the concept of the 'extraordinary' man -- Raskolnikov, the famous character, teeters danagerously above the rules that govern ordinary behaviors and gives himself permission to be a murderer of the ordinary man. I think Bill O'Reilly and his playmate, Kline, are culpable of similar meglomania -- privacy and rules did not apply to them, and they could put others in jeopardy because they had the moral authority to do so.

and no one, besides the clinics, have criticized their actions.

This is what infuriates me.