You know, from where I’m sitting, there are three basic kinds of stupid. Plain old everyday stupid, inspired stupid, and totally brain dead stupid. And a week ago or so, the state of Oklahoma was awarded the gold medal in what-the-fuck stupid.
Even before the leak of the Alito first draft decision overturning Roe, GOP states and legislatures smelled blood in the water. All you have to do is to watch the news to see the dominoes falling as GOP controlled states rushed to climb onto the abortion ban bandwagon. But the state of Oklahoma went the extra step, and immortalized themselves in the pantheon of stupid.
The Oklahoma legislature went ahead and passed a snapback law, which the Governor signed, making abortion illegal in Oklahoma the minute that the SCOTUS overturned Roe. But somehow or other, that wasn’t quite good enough for these dust bowl Okies. They just went back in and banned abortion in the state, criminalizing it.
Now that’s bad enough. But the legislature decided to shoot the moon and make it really intrusive. The second bill that the Governor signed doesn’t just criminalize abortion in Oklahoma, it makes it a crime for a woman to travel outside of Oklahoma borders to obtain an abortion, and then come back home! If this isn’t an act of totally brain dead stupidity, I don’t know what is.
Sadly, this isn’t Oklahoma’s first ride in the rodeo. In the 40’s, Oklahoma was suffering a terrible drought. And they decided that the way for God to cut them a break was to ban alcohol in the state of Oklahoma. Which is exactly what the legislature did.
But then they jumped the shark. They stopped a through train, entering Oklahoma from the west, and departing oklahoma from the east, with no scheduled stops in Oklahoma, because it had a club car serving alcohol. They arrested the bartender, and it took days for the railroad to get him released.
Here’s the McGuffin. The railroads took their revenge. It took a couple of years, but the railroads rerouted all of their trains so that no trains passed through Oklahoma. And without the freight trains, dozens of Oklahoma towns withered and died.
And now they’re doing it again. I would love to hear which portion of the United States constitution allows a state to control the reasons that free citizens can leave the state, and criminalizing their departure if they travel to another state where abortion is legal. Even a 6-3 conservative super majority isn’t brain dead enough to allow a state to restrict their citizens rights of free passage.
And that’s why I am now proudly presenting the Oklahoma legislature, as well as the Oklahoma Governor, with the coveted Stand up and take a bow, fool! award. Wear it in good health.
As a suburban mom with Gen z’s, they seem perplexed that anyone wants to get up into anyone else’s business. I believe there will be an explosion of resentment big enough to reach yertle’s hair. This justified resentment is already simmering because of many other factors. This just lights the fuse.
Unless the s.c. once again uses Stare Decisis as toilet paper, forbidding people from traveling PERIOD is verboten. The only exception is when the Man (Mann?) act is violated and it is more than a little bit of a stretch to compare taking someone over state lines to have sex with them and going over the state lines for medical care. Now, I’m not saying this is not within the realm of possibilities anymore-this s.c. is just as likely to say women can no longer travel at all as not. I’m just saying that currently interstate travel cannot be hindered and that is what this law does.
Honestly, I do believe people of conscience and in favor of progress and every corporation wanting to do business with those people need to leave these back-assward states. Yes, I’ve read the arguments stating the opposite: stay and fight. The fight is over now until some of those hacks are removed. This country would be better served if these states left the union-their ignorance only hurts the country and nothing they do help it.
Put up walls along the interstate and federal highways in these bass-ackward states so that you can only stop at rest areas, and there are pedestrian/bicycle entrances for their employees and bus-stops. If they want to live in the 19th century, make it the 19th century for them. People who want out (or in!) get their relocation expenses paid.
Sadly, this kind of act is so characteristic of knee-jerk right wingers. Same thing with religious (so they claim) nuts who refuse to make wedding cakes for LGBT folks. I belong to a relatively conservative religious organization, but I have never heard any leader explain my responsible behavior as refusing a commercial service to someone I disagree with. They only said I should not marry another man. Same with abortion. Don’t like it. Don’t get one. I believe in free will in private decisions. To me the ONLY involvement the government should have in the abortion question is to deny the right of citizens to receive public financial aid when procuring a selective abortion solely as a means of birth control. If the government feels otherwise, then the zygote should be declared a person and the IRS should be required to give it a tax exemption in the year of gestation.
As a lifelong Oklahoman I can confirm that competitive assholery is as much admired here by far too many people as it is in Texas. *sighs*
HERE MURPH and URSULA ICYMI from @Literature_Lady
Justice Alito’s invocation of Sir Matthew Hale in his leaked majority opinion is so, so much more fucked up than people realize. I’m a professor with a PhD, and my area of expertise happens to be women and gender in the early modern era (1500-1700). Here is what you need to know.
https://tinyurl.com/2p8utfs8
Sir Matthew Hale was a huge advocate for marital rape. Like many early modern men, he believed that women’s bodies belonged to men, first their father when they were born and then their husband when they were married. WOMEN WERE NOT SEEN AS AUTONOMOUS BEINGS.
Early modern law was based on a combination of roman law, common law, and biblical law. There wasn’t a separation of church and state. The 1632 manual The Lawes Resolutions of Women’s Rights, for instance, cited the Bible as the basis of a lot of laws pertaining to women.
Hale, just like a lot of Christian extremists today, believed that women were made from Adam’s rib. God did not make her as an autonomous being with rights. She was a physical extension of his body, made to be his “helpmeet,” namely to exist to help him to whatever he wants.
A FEW MORE TWEETS … think of that #MI Congressman #MI 74 who told his daughters to just lie back and enjoy rape…
(DEM) WOMAN BEAT HIM in a position never ever held by a Dem.
GOP Motto: We’re the party of law and order and family values and personal freedom, except when the laws and constitution don’t suit us, we want to screw you and your family for cheap political gain, and, honestly, we couldn’t spell freedom if it was painted in reverse on our foreheads so we could see it in the mirror. Come to think of it, we don’t even believe in mirrors – they are too sciencey and probably made by immigrants or gay people. And we really, really, really don’t like self-reflection.”