In the midst of a where-there’s-smoke-there’s-probably-fire stroll through other Republican National Committee expense-report filings Lindsay Beyerstein of Big Think says of the RNC’s notorious expensing of a trip to a “girl on girl” bondage-themed strip club. (Emphasis mine.)
Even the infamous trip to the strip club was legitimate from a campaign finance point of view, despite being a PR nightmare. The staffers were apparently courting donors: These hard-driving captains of industry are not putting down cash on some vague promise of overturning Roe. Apparently, rich Republicans won’t cough up the big bucks until they actually see women in bondage.
The rest of her article, which is about other… questionable expense items and the remarkable lack of oversight for campaign fundraising expenditures is pretty good too. But those last two sentences? Ouch!
Like the Republicans will
Submitted by Nightfall (not verified) on Sat, 2010-04-03 19:07.Like the Republicans will ever make more than token effort to repeal Roe vs Wade, or any of their other push-button issues. If they ever actually accomplished most of their goals, their “base” voters would become content and generally stop voting, and the other side’s “base” would get into even more of a voting frenzy. Of course, that’s pretty much true of the democrats too… whoever “wins” first gets largely shut out of the political system for a decade or so.
Anyway, despite the pithy comment about bondage, I wouldn’t read too much into that aside from the fact that they’re being hypocritical about the party’s so-called “family values” image. As usual.
I was not aware that bondage
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Sun, 2010-04-04 10:10.I was not aware that bondage was a pro-life statement. I’m going to have to rethink a lot of things now.
No, these guys were just treating their political views and their personal sexuality as two totally different realms, which frankly would be normal if they hadn’t used political money to do it.
[In this case “bondage” being what my old logic and rhetoric professor would call the equivocal term. As, for that matter, would be “pro-life,” there being a rather profound difference between the myriad policies (unexplored to the best of my knowledge by those inclined to be large-sum GOP donors) that would affect decisions to carry unexpected pregnancies to term and bluntly overturning Roe. That same professor, come to think of it, also argued (persuasively, I think) that for tolerance to be consistent there must be certain “zero points” where one can affirmatively oppose someone else’s principles. Thus it’s fine it’s someone’s kink to a) privately fantasize about immobilizing someone and having sex with them, and b) it’s conceivably even fine to publicly deplore that someone’s reproductive options before, during, or after she’s had sex. It’s not consistent with civility and respect for the autonomy of others, and therefore not tolerable, to hold both positions about the same individual. (Ugh, I’ve still got a cold and I’m not sure how clearly I explained it. But you probably get the gist — there are points where public vs. private expression necessarily negate each other, and Bayerstein’s quip highlights one of them.) Thanks, Holly. —fl]