Wednesday 31 October 2012

Republican Rape

In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the Presidential election has been temporarily relegated from the headlines, although through the tour of disaster sites by President Obama and the charity drives of his challenger Mitt Romney, it is in truth never far from the surface. Only a very temporary outbreak of faux decorum has stopped the arguments between the two major rivals.

Yet we should not forget that by this time next week, the USA may have a new President-elect, as well as a new Congress. And the polls for the three major contest all show advances by the Republicans: Realclear Politics has Romney and Obama in a dead heat, one which could be disrupted if voters in predominantly Democrat-leaning states in the storm zone end up with a rather understandably low turnout next Tuesday. In the Senate, where a third of places are up, Republicans may end up short of a majority but are tipped to make gains, while they are 40 seats ahead in the forecast for the House of Representatives.

So what sort of men -as nearly all of them are - might these new legislators be? Aside from fiscal conservatives and defence hawks, one remarkably consistent strain throughout many of their pronouncements has been not merely an anti-abortion stance, but a rather warped view of rape as the quotes below show. These men are not some lonesome idiot sitting on a bar stool sounding off offensively (though who knows what some of them may get up to?). These are men already in prominent political positions in the most powerful nation in the world. These are men selected by the Republicans and endorsed by Mitt Romney, the man who may be the next President.

Judge for yourself - are people with these views fit to hold office anywhere in the world?




No comments:

Post a Comment