I got a lot of feedback about my response to Swiftee’s cartoon last week. 

Much of it was negative; some said I should have condemned Swiftee’s use of Robin Marty’s ultrasound.  Simple fact:  I expressed my disapproval.  I don’t agree with using peoples’ children – even those of public figures (yes, Robin’s a public figure) – as material in this little online scrum of ours.  As I noted, I wish Swiftee would have taken a less-personal approach…

…because, other than getting so very, very personal and dragging someone else’s fetus baby into the argument, he’s right. 

 More on that later.

But at any rate, I’ve said I disapprove.  I’m not sure what kind of theatrical garment-rending people expect, but don’t hold your breath – it ain’t gonna happen.  People who’ve criticized my response (or, for that matter, assume a definitive response is incumbent on me) want me to pound the whole thing into a black and white square, when it’s very gray and has no shape.  I’m personally very pro-life, but think that medical exceptions might exist that could justify it, sometimes; I also believe that the issue should be reserved to the states, that Roe was a ludicrous decision that conjured nonexistent penumbrae from the ether, that government governs by the consent of the governed and that means “compromise”, even if we find some of the compromises loathsome (I have a hunch Tom Swift and Amanda Marcotte would both be repulsed by the German or French solutions to the abortion issue, permitting abortions into the first quarter of gestation and then banning it completely afterward), and that partial birth abortion is unjustifiable in every case I’m personally aware of, and could (and in the case of viable fetuses otherwise-normal babies, should) ethically be treated as murder.  I believe that Swiftee was wrong to pick on Robin’s baby, but that someone needs to point out the irony that the little darling that Robin and Smarty will no doubt love intensely and do a fabulous job of raising is not one iota different, physically or morally, than the millions just like him or her that are aborted every year, and that there’s a reason people like Swiftee and, also, me get so exercised that the pro-“choice” movement plugs its ears and goes “nya nya nya” to avoid addressing that reality. 

Make that black and white.  Get back to me when you’ve got it done.

You can quibble about my approach – whatever.  Or you can do what Mark Gisleson did (and does on so many issues):  create your own special world with its own logical, rhetorical and ethical rules all your very own, so that in your mind you win all the arguments and everyone else is all ickypoopy.  Gisleson quotes some unnamed wag who conjures up moral analogies with the lithe suppleness of a German funk band:

In response to Mitch:

Altruism is fighting for a right you do not necessarily wish to exercise yourself.

Thanks for noticing!  I do that all the time; I have fought (literally – like, with my fists) for the rights of gays to not get the shit beaten out of them, though I’m not gay; I fight for the abortion debate to be remanded to the states where it should be, even though I’ll never have one; I fight for freedom of speech (well, I do use that); as the Twin Cities’ foremost feminist, I fight tirelessly even as lesser, more patriarchal minds titter with misguided derision, even though I’m a guy.  A lifelong non-smoker and non-drug user, I fight against smoking bans and oppose the War on Drugs.  I’ve even chided Swiftee for what he did, even though I’m a pro-lifer and I’m not Rew or Smarty and Swiftee’s a friend of mine!

I am, indeed, as altruistic as it gets.

Assholism is fighting for war when you have absolutely no intention of ever laying your own ass on the line, or making even a teensy tiny sacrifice while others see their lives completely disrupted.

Fascinating (no, really), and utterly irrelevant.

Just because Bush answers questions by raising new topics doesn’t mean you get to.

(Side note:  What is the Latin term for non-sequitur, again?  That one keeps stumping me). 

The “new topic” is inseparable from the old topic.  And who died and appointed Mark Gisleson the supreme deity?  I can answer the question in any way that is germane. 

Which is exactly what I’ve done. 

 What Swiftee did is what Swiftee did, and it has nothing to do with chickenhawks or the right to privacy.

 Again – I disapprove of Swiftee making the argument personal.  But I think it’s funny that many of the same people who are gamboling about hollering for Swiftee’s head for getting too personal (but being on point!) tittered and chuckled when the less-talented likes of Ken Avidor and Jeff Fecke put out online cartoons that, for example, misrepresented my fellow conservative bloggers and I (the term is “lied”, actually). 

Silence!

And it amazes me that the local media tries to link to me when I clearly don’t want to be linked to (family friendly media have no business linking to me), but ignores Swiftee (aka Tom Swift, failed St. Paul schoolboard candidate) who, in post after post, drops his pants, waggles his wee-wee, and shits on everything and everyone to prove how loathsome liberals are.

 Well, duh.  Swiftee – firebrand that he is – gets 1-200 visitors a day.  Gisleson benefits from the lefty hive mentality and gets many, many more.  Traffic equals visibility (if you’re a leftyblog, anyway).

(And why is it that leftyblogs and every other DFLer in Saint Paul thinks calling Swiftee a “failed school board candidate” pejorates him in any way?  Shall we call Algore, John Kerry, Mike Hatch and Patty Wetterling “failed candidates?”)

And, since most of the Minnesota rightwing blogs still link to Swiftee, I have to assume that the party of Pawlenty is OK with mocking other people’s fetuses.

Again with the “own special little world” bit; by Gisleson’s insular logic, might we assume that the DFL is OK with Gisleson’s frequent invocations of violence, references to his self-proclaimed past as a labor goon, and references to revolution (which, even though many local conservative bloggers took them out of context, were still kind of dumb?)

Swiftee wasn’t mocking the fetus baby; he was mocking a contradiction he sees in the baby’s parents’ world view.  I think it was excessively personal, and I think Swiftee would have made a much better point if he had not done it.  But while we’re on the subject, how about we talk about that whole “contradiction” thing? 

We can leave the specific people out of it if you’d like.

At any rate; if you want to condemn someone’s actions, do it yourself; I’ve said all that I need to say.

This entry was posted by by Mitch Berg on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 5:16 am and is filed under Culture War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.