I am getting less and less tolerant of zealots. They leave no room for compromise nor do they care their views are held by a minority that are resented and opposed by the majority of Americans. They think they rule the roost, but they don't rule mine, or most others, either..
This word I heard recently, zealots, describes the advocates of the most extreme second amendment and anti-abortion views. Here is Bing's simple definition:
- a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their religious, political, or other ideals.
Most people see hot-button cultural issues in various shades of gray, nuanced and not viewed in black-and-white absolutist terms. Americans’ views of abortion, 1995-2022 | Pew Research Center Key facts about Americans and guns | Pew Research Center They believe some restrictions are fine and so are some exceptions. I fall into the same category as "most people " .. The devil in the details is what restrictions or exceptions seem OK to me and reasonable or unreasonable to almost everyone else. "Almost everyone else 's" views also vary depending on geographic location. "It's okay to have hunting rifles and handguns to protect me and my home, but it is hard to see so many kids in such a short time killed by weapons of war and large ammo clips. " "It's okay to exempt cases from abortion bans rape, incest, the life of the mother, but I have mixed feelings about other reasons". The extremists dig in their heels; "Don't touch my assault rifles.," the most fanatic cry. "It is my right to own them. So what if they can kill kids in such a short time. My rights are what is important". Theor diversion strategy becomes to blame something else like mental health. The zealots who cry this are the same that oppose both more funding for mental health services and red flag laws or any other attempt to keep weapons or war off the shelves and out of the hands of potential murderers and suicide by cop. Unless the link is made between the identification of a person who is considered by some process by those who know them and their social media postings well and the gun seller, the mental health risk identification/red flag is useless to keep those too dangerous from buying weapons. Even then, if the potential killer has not come to the attention of a mental health professional, a close family member, is a loner or just too young, or is noticed by law enforcement or educators, they can slip through the red flag cracks. Mental health services as part of red flag laws will still be very helpful...but ineffective without that formal link. Open carry just compounds the issue: who knows in a public space if the guy sporting a semi-automatic handgun or a mass killing weapon who walks into the door is a customer or a killer with mental issues these days. Do you duck and run, call 911, or just hope he is just flaunting his second amendment rights? (Colorado is an open carry state and that was my reaction when a customer walked across a Macdonald's parking lot to enter the building with what looked to me like a John Wayne six-shooter in a holster, tied to the thigh ready for a quick draw. .He had a young son in tow, though, which made me think he was flaunting his second amendment rights. I laughed at my reaction then, but given recent events, I am more inclined to duck and run first.)
Updated 4/21/23
The Tennessee zealots dominating their state legislature threw out fellow members who protested the majority's attempt to legislate protection of the ability for ordinary citizens to own weapons of war. 'Update: Even after the shooter was known to be unstable, and red flag laws could have prevented his actions, the GOP dominated supper majority in their legislature called red flag laws dead on arrival. Tennessee House Republicans: Red Flag Laws a 'Non-Starter' - Tennessee Star News flash. The Heller Supreme Court decision extended the right to individuals to bear arms, not just to members of a well-regulated militia, per the words of the 2nd amendment. Heller was about a handgun case. Whether the same view extends to assault weapons, we do not know because it has yet to be before the Court. Heller also ok'd some restrictions to the 2nd Amendment; it was no blank license or no absolute right. It has taken time and school shootings, some affecting my own family, to side with those advocating banning the sale of semi-automatic assault weapons. Uvalde and Nashville were the last straws.
The most extreme view of abortion is that life begins at conception so any interference after this is murder and those who help with abortion are also murderers or at least they deserve jail time. It follows this line of thinking that abortion pills, contraception pills, and procedural abortions should be criminalized and against the law and enforced by the government.
Yesterday, a Federal judge in Amarillo ruled in favor of taking off the nationwide market an abortion pill as a dangerous pharmaceutical, yet approved as safe by the FDA 23 years ago. Over half of the abortions in the US are by the pill. It has been in use in the US since then with a track record of safety. Ignoring that, the judge inferred that the danger was to the product resulting from the union of a sperm and egg at conception. https://www.axios.com/2023/04/08/abortion-pill-us-supreme-court ." So what if the mothers die, but the "born baby" lives for the lack of a procedure she needs to save her life." That is the subject of a case in court now: a lawsuit brought by six Texas women victims of the new absolutist Texas law. Sadly, sometimes both the unborn baby and the mother die for lack of medical attention.
Those who put the life of the unborn above the life of the mother is a judgment call based on religious convictions. People are entitled to their religious beliefs, converting more to follow them and advocating for their righteousness, . Who enforces it is the question. Using government powers to force others to bow to that belief is the issue on my table. It appears to me that those holding the most extreme view, that even an unviable fetus at conception is already a person, have failed to convert the majority of the population to their position. Gallup poll: Most identify as pro-choice, want abortion to stay legal (usatoday.com) Failing to win the battle from the pulpit, they want government on their behalf to force others to comply with their convictions. What is clear: no one is advocating for government to force someone to have an abortion. The zealots want to government to keep all women from ever having one.
Here is where I roost: I fall into the category of approving the "viability" limit as did Roe v Wade and I come down on the side of protecting the health of mothers first, and I firmly oppose having the government force women to give birth to dead fetuses or pregnancies caused by rape or incest. (Rape is a crime; the person raped is a victim of crime; incest has impacts on genetics. Just some FYI's for those unconcerned about the immorality of such acts). I notice that the most anti-abortion zealots are men who never will be in a position to have an abortion themelves. Polls find over half of those opposing abortions are older men. https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-roe-v-wade-poll-men-women-2022-7 It's hard to speculate why that is: It could be that it is about power and control over women by those who just come from an older time where men believed it was better when they dominated society, workforce, and homes. I am sure what the younger generation would call them would be " the old boomer idiots." A Gallop poll found that just 33% of women identified as "pro-life". 'Pro-Choice' or 'Pro-Life' Demographic Table (gallup.com)
Obviously, the Amarillo-located federal judge supported the most extreme interpretation and proceeded to call the denial of abortion pills for reasons not based on science or legal precedence, but instead on the religious belief held by zealots that life begins at conception so therefore must be protected as like a live baby. The ideological prejudice of the Amarillo judge was revealed when he used the term to describe the "fetus" as an "unborn baby". The same judge has expressed interest in banning birth control. A Trump judge just fired the first shot against birth control, in Deanda v. Becerra. - Vox Immediately after last week's ruling, another federal judge in Oregon ruled the opposite, and the FDA prepared to sue as well. If the Amarillo'sjudge's ruling is upheld, this would result in a ban on the most widely used and safest abortion meth nationwide even in states, nearly half of them, where abortion is legal or mostly legal. Given the anti-choice credentials of the Trump-era appointees to the Supreme Court of hardcore anti-abortion in spite of their denials in hearings, these warring Federal bench interpretations will land in the Supreme Court, and the outcome is more or less preordained. The Zealots will win unless Congress passes laws protecting a woman's right to choose.
What is hard to grasp is the Court's Dobbs ruling that ended Roe v Wade, ruled against federal pro-choice laws, and left it up to the states. Now, the zealots want the Court to overrule states who have pro-choice protections for women on their books and constitution, denying women the method by which one-half of abortions are performed in the US? The political fallout determined the GOP losses in 2020 and 2022 and the fallout continues into 2023 in Wisconsin.
The jaw-dropping events in Tennessee this last week with the expulsion or attempted expulsion of fellow lawmakers for demonstrating on behalf of gun safety laws, the chamber that broke rules revealed the majority party's zealotry in three issue areas, not just the utmost extreme views on second amendment gun rights (thou shalt not ban anything), but also outright racism, and subverts democracy with supporting dictatorship of the majority instead of democracy, which protects rights of the minority views. The zealot-driven absolute majority legislators attempted to suppress any opposition by removing them from their body for the reason the three broke their decorum rules. The Tennessee Three have both the eloquence and the spotlight to turn these kinds of zealotry into a national and international shaming of the state and eventually a revolt by the offended majority at the ballot box. MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: The Significance of the Tennessee Three: a national political catalyst
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