Are there any conservatives (or even non-conservatives) that think that Rush Limbaugh’s underlying point about insurance coverage of birth control is valid, but he is discrediting the whole argument by his asinine approach of ugly personal attacks?
I get the impression that among his audience, his style does not discredit whatever point he’s making. Outside his audience, it does.
Fixed the typo in the thread title, although I had to reword it to make the edit fit because of the length.
Not really, no. I’m a practical person when it comes to government policy, before anything else. I don’t feel women have a right to publicly funded contraception, but I think providing as many contraception options as possible combined with education about the use of contraceptives is good public policy. I feel this way for the same reason Richard Nixon did (the President who started Federal funding for Planned Parenthood):
It decreases the number of poor people being born.
Pretty much this (although I support this more to reduce abortions than to “decrease the number of poor people”). People don’t have a natural/God-given right to social security, welfare, jobs, unemployment benefits, education, Internet, etc. but if not everyone can have it and it hurts the people, than the government can provide minimal coverage-not as a right but as a privilege.
There may be good arguments against the gov’ts contraception policy, but I don’t think Rush was making them, underlying or otherwise. Even aside from the “slut” comments, his rant was pretty incoherent.
Why is public funding always insinuated into discussions on this subject?
So conservatives who are smart enough to avoid yelling “slut” on the radio can tapdance around the fact that their real objection to contraception is rooted in psychotic attitudes towards women.
No. I have no problems with legalizing contraception. After all Ayn Rand certainly wouldn’t mind contraception but she would have objected to the idea of government paying for it.
I think the point they’re making is that Sandra Fluke’s original testimony wasn’t about government paying for contraception at all. It was about a private university that she attended not being required to provide contraception for the students it was supposed to be caring for the health of.
Or that anyone was ever insisting upon “natural/God-given” rights, for that matter. Limbaugh’s discourse was so obfuscating (as usual) of any point at all that even if I were a conservative, I’d be hard pressed to identify it. Which valid point from Limbaugh does the OP theoretically posit?
I stand corrected. I should have said to the idea of government mandating employers to provide specific types of coverage in their health care plan.
To the OP: Yes, it does; because we end up discussing Rush and dittoheads and Foxnews and not the real issue.
A private religious-affiliated university being required to provide contraception in spite of that religion’s convictions to the contrary.
And to the OP, yes indeed, it does piss me off that Rush’s bloviation played right into President Obama & Friends’ hands. Rush could have given a jolly & cogent ribbing of the entitlement felt by a privileged 30-year old woman but he decided to get down & dirty. He deserves everything he’s getting. However, in the long run, he’ll be fine, but now the cause he purported to represent is pretty much sullied.
Health insurance is just another form of compensation. Are you against mandatory minimum wages? Mandatory overtime pay? There is ample precedent for government mandates over employee compensation.
Yes. I have long felt that weak arguments weaken strong positions. If you have a good argument, using weak ones makes it look like you don’t. Is his birth certificate the best argument against Obama?
Rush blew it and weakened the fight against people not believing in birth control having to support it.
Big government isn’t a problem as long as they’re performing a real social service.
First step, abortion, second, sterilisation, third, moral objectivism. It’s strange how the party of individualism rejects Darwin, but Malthus only sometimes…
If I were a Republican, I’d hold that Rush was being paid an incredible amount by the Democratic party to deflect reasoned debate on this issue.
Does it bother anyone that Sandra Fluke’s point about contraception being a medical treatment for conditions other than preventing pregnancy has been overshadowed by Rush’s asinine approach?
Sandra Fluke’s testimony before Congress
What exactly was Rush’s valid point about this anyway?
I do believe the OP gets to decide what he wants to talk about when it come to the subject of his own thread, notwithstanding the efforts of most of the conservatives in this thread to try to change the subject.
And what does this(and your previous post) have to do with Rush’s effect on the debate?