Broccoli

[Jon Miller]

Because the Republican positions and legislation has not changed in reality in 30 years/etc.

What has changed is with this batch of legislation is the words.

Or do you not know much about US political history?

JM

[Hauldren Collider]

Well done, you join Reg in the group of people who not only disregard polling data but also don't bother listening to what women are actually saying.

The war on women is not just words, its a raft of legislation intended to reduce womens rights in society. Are we really supposed to imagine that the backlash from women has nothing to do with the legislation and is purely about the nasty words?

[kentonio]

Because the Republican positions and legislation has not changed in reality in 30 years/etc.

What has changed is with this batch of legislation is the words.

Or do you not know much about US political history?

JM

You've got some examples of the Republican party of 30 years ago trying to redefine the meaning of rape, and trying to force women to undergo mandatory invasive medical procedures before they can access abortion services? How about allowing doctors to lie to their patients?

There was an interesting article today by a Republican woman who has just switched to the Dems because the party she always felt more aligned with has basically just dumped her and her fellow Republican women by the roadside.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Republicans have been tried to ban or severely restrict abortion since the 1980s, in not earlier. They are just trying more tactics as Planned Parenthood v. Casey indicated that the Courts won't toss it out.

[kentonio]

Extreme tactics that step beyond the parameters of the regular abortion debate and into the realms of severely limiting womens rights. I'm not saying this hasn't been the wet dream of some Republicans for many years, but for the party to swing so hard right that they actually support this stuff at the highest levels of the party is shocking. McCain shouldn't seem like a lone voice in the party when he stands up and speaks against this crap.

[Jon Miller]

trying to force women to undergo mandatory invasive medical procedures before they can access abortion services?

Republicans have (mostly) been trying to ban abortions for 30+ years. That is: make them illegal.

If you think that abortion is a right, how is this worse?

JM

[Imran Siddiqui]

Indeed. They've only turned to these more... creative alternatives after they realized they weren't going to be able to ban abortion (or at least not in this generation).

[Aeson]

If you think that abortion is a right, how is this worse?

It's obviously wrong. "Worse" or not is irrelevant.

[Jon Miller]

It's obviously wrong. "Worse" or not is irrelevant.

Huh? How is this at all relevant?

kent said that women were leaving the republican party over them trying to restrict women's rights (namely abortion)

they have always been trying to do this, nothing has changed as far as 'restricting women's rights' goes

so women are not leaving the republican party (the last couple of months) over them trying to restrict women's rights

what has changed is the language and expression used, this is why women are leaving the republican party right now

JM

[Aeson]

Sorry, I misread your statement.

[Aeson]

I do think there is potential for women to be further alienated (whether they are in the party or not) by this type of invasion into privacy. You have to remember that party platforms are not single issue, and many people identify with a party even if they don't agree with every portion of the platform. It's certainly possible that some women who are pro choice have no problem voting for R's over other issues because they realize that R's aren't going to get abortion overturned. But something like this could convince them that R's actually still have some ability to infringe on women's rights and thus drive away that support for other issues.

[Tupac Shakur]

No one's going to remember the "war on women" a month from now, let alone in November. Feiler Faster Thesis.

[Wezil]

I think that if we for a moment stop the dispute about Hans Ø, we danes and you canucks can agree on several points

The long war is coming to an end.

The National Post has learned that Canada and Denmark are apparently this close to hammering out a deal over Hans Island, the vitally important strategic chokepoint that has kept these two warrior nations on the brink of mutual annihilation for the last eight years. With a little luck and perhaps some Annan-style shuttle diplomacy, our long national nightmare might soon be over.

The plan is brilliant for its simplicity. There will be no exchange of atomic energy monitors, no prisoner swaps, and no gradual pullbacks to the positions the countries held on the first day of the costly conflict. Neither side will have to disarm its military forces or surrender commanders for war crimes trials. Instead, the deal under discussion between Ottawa and Copenhagen would take Hans Island, a rock roughly a square kilometre in size and — get this — simply divide it in half.

There’s a certain beauty to this arrangement. Hans Island, which rests between Canada’s peace-loving Ellesmere Island and Danish-occupied Greenland, exists in legal limbo. The two sides have already agreed to a maritime border, but never defined how Hans itself was divided. The peace plan, if successfully implemented, would take that imaginary line in the ocean and extend it right through Hans Island, dividing it almost perfectly in half. There is no word yet on whether the divided Hans Island would need a peacekeeping force, group of UN observers or Korean Peninsula-style demilitarized zone to separate Free Hans Island from Danish-Occupied Oppression Land (the other 500 square metres).

This assumes that the two sides are able to come to an agreement, of course. That’s far from certain. Neither Canada nor Denmark wants to admit defeat in this long struggle. “The political complexities of making an announcement are, in many ways, much more complicated than settling the actual territorial dispute,” said Whitney Lackenbauer, associate professor of history at St. Jerome’s University. “Both governments publicly staked their sovereignty claims. The early messaging of ‘standing up for Canada’ puts our government in a difficult position.”

Very true. We can only pray that Denmark’s war-mongering leaders appreciate the position Canada is in. There’s nothing more dangerous than a frightened, cornered beaver. And we are certainly ready to fight — on Wednesday, one of Canada’s submarines was successfully lowered into the ocean without sinking, and another recently fired a torpedo. Even if Denmark chose to resist in the face of such overwhelming naval odds, in a war of attrition, Canada would prevail while still having a totally respectable 29 million people left over. Dansk, meanwhile, would be spoken only in hell.

Clearly, such a conflict would serve the interests of no one outside the arms manufacturing community. It is imperative that the world’s diplomats focus their efforts on where they are truly needed. The rest of the world’s problems are clearly small fry next to the simmering hostility between two advanced democratic NATO allies pitted against each other over control of a contested pebble located somewhere north of nowhere. Because clearly, this is an issue that no two nations could reasonably be expected to figure out on their own.

National Post
mgurney@nationalpost.com

[OzzyKP]

[Aeson]

544.0 or fight!