Jill says

Today's GOP outrage comes from New Hampshire, where a GOP state Congressman advocates the elimination of the mentally handicapped, drug addicts, and the physically disabled: "A 91-year-old state representative told a constituent that he believes in eugenics and that the world would be better off without 'defective people.'"

Source: Brilliant at Breakfast

But don't worry, rather than outright "eliminating" undesirables Margaret Sanger sometimes used eugenics arguments to justify providing birth control to impoverished women who couldn't afford doctors and therefore couldn't get it under the table the way middle-class and wealthy women could so we should all just abolish Planned Parenthood.  Or something.

Of course Sanger did it roughly 91 years ago. And later repudiated it

He's still saying it today. What's his excuse?

Not sure why we don't hear anyone saying we should abolish the New Hampshire GOP since one of their senior members believes the same things.  Mostly I think It's Just Not News When Conservatives Do It.

Update: Turns out even they couldn't stomach the guy (at least not in the still-relatively-liberal New Hampshire GOP.) He's outta there.

Via anthropologist, paleontologist, and Neanderthal expert John Hawks' regular "Neanderthal anti-defamation files" feature, media diva Sarah Palin said of aspiring teabagger Presidential candidate Rick (man-on-dog) Santorum

Why do they have to bring poor Neandertals into it?

...

"I will not call him the knuckle-dragging Neanderthal," Palin continued. "I'll let his wife call him that instead."

Oh, well, this is so easy a caveman could do it.

Source: john hawks weblog

First of all, it's always funny to be reminded that over-the-top doth-protest-too-much homophobic conservative Republicans are sometimes married to members of the opposite sex.  Complete and total bias on my part, I know.  But that really was my gut response: "Rick Santorum is married?" Not that there's anything wrong with that.  Nor even anything implausible about it.  I'm just more used to the Ted Haggard / Jim Baker / Larry Craig / Fred Phelps / Jim West / George Alan Rekers / Richard Curtis / Mark Foley / Brent Parker / Matthew Glavin / Bruce Barclay / Glenn Murphy / Eddie Long / Troy King / David Dreier / Roy Ashburn / Ed Schrock / Jeff Gannon / Terry Dolan model of Republican homophobia.

Second of all, though, Palin was (for once) lashing out at Santorum in a perfectly appropriate fashion.  Columnist Ruth Marcus puts the seemingly Neanderthalist non-sequeteur in context

Just in case his wife doesn't take Sarah Palin up on her offer, I'll say it: Rick Santorum is a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.

The former Pennsylvania senator and wannabe president was bad-mouthing Palin the other day for being a no-show at CPAC, the annual conservative gathering and showcase for presidential hopefuls.

"I wouldn't have turned it down," Santorum said of Palin's decision not to attend, "but I don't live in Alaska, right, and I'm not the mother to all these kids, and I don't have other responsibilities like she has."

All these kids? Santorum has seven, which by my count makes him two kids busier than Palin.

Oh, wait, I guess not. He's father to all these kids, not mother.

And we know who stays home with the kids.

Source: The Washington Post

That guy really is a little shit stain. I'd just add that the incident really does illustrate what a genuine outlier Sarah Palin is to the Republican mainstream.  I genuinely don't understand what the fuck she's up to these days, but once upon a time she really was a force for change -- positive change no less! -- in the Alaska Republican establishment.

I'd just add that that impulse of hers, even more than her sex or gender or even complete decent into id and not just ideology, explains the animosity against Palin by deep establishment Republicans like Rick Santorum.  She's no stupider than they are.  She's no less hypocritical than they are.  She's no less avaricious.  Nor fiscally responsible. Nor prepared to create and execute national-level government legislation or policy than they either.  But unlike the Santorums, the McConnells, and the Bohners of the party establishment she has little tolerance for those qualities in others further up her party's food chain.  And as an almost literally self-made woman, whatever her own too-real faults in the domain of reproductive rights, she really doesn't have much tolerance for their knuckle-dragging attitudes towards women.

Shame she no longer seems interested in using her abilities to do good rather than to do well.

In his year-end best-of post roundup Ed Yong of Discover Blogs reflects on a story that, I think, provides a foundation for absolutely peculiar (if, naturally, fundamentally un-Christian) behavior of mainstream American conservatives.

Power breeds hypocrisy – powerful people judge others more harshly but cheat more themselves

Newspapers are full of examples of powerful people behaving badly, from the diplomats in the Wikileaks cables to the peers in the UK’s expenses scandal. Power, it is said, corrupts, and Joris Lammers has solid evidence for this. He showed that powerful people are more likely to behave immorally than those with less power, but paradoxically less likely to tolerate immorality in other people. They frowned more strongly upon speeding, tax-dodging or keeping stolen goods, but were more lenient about doing it themselves. Even thinking about the feeling of power can trigger these double standards.

Source: Discover Blogs

From the behaviors of Richard Nixon to Newt Gingrich to David Vitter to Paul Ryan to Joseph Stalin and Ayn Rand the conveniently misunderstood* notion that "rank hath its privileges" would account for an enormous amount of both the overweening self-indulgence as well as the equally pitiless punishments proposed by those who have accumulated power by any means.

My guess is that the latter effect -- simply thinking about the feeling of power -- explains why conservatism appeals to rank-and-file tea partiers despite their almost uniform low-levels of power, rank, or (particularly) productivity.

It explains the phenomenon where conservatives prosecute the infidelities, prostitution, and other sexual behavior they gleefully practice among themselves.  And it absolutely explains their very consistent tendency to justify pregnancy terminations for themselves and their children ("but she has her whole life in front of her!") that they adamantly oppose for "others.**"

And speaking of non-Christian behavior, I'm... pretty bloody certain that Jesus was talking about exactly this phenomenon when he condemned the Pharisees... and I'm pretty the same "fuck you, I'm going to Heaven" attitude he loathed in the Pharisees is what motivates so many nominal contemporary conservative nominal Christians to agitate aggressively against charitable works by their own congregations! Like the Pharisees once imagines they'd best enjoy rewards they're enjoying here on Earth for they're likely to be unexpectedly, eternally, and consequently very bitterly disappointed by their (single and very brief) meetings with St. Peter.

Just sayin'

* The Feudal legal structure which codified "rank hath its privilege" also included the principle of "noblesse oblige," which meant, effectively, that rank also hath it's obligations. An aspect of tradition that contemporary conservative American elites are dead set against adopting.
** I'm obviously not saying abortion itself is wrong, just pointing out the double standard held by others who do think it's wrong... for others.

After dismissing the to main arguments for prosecuting abortion providers but not the women who hire them as sexist claptrap Scott Lemieux of the Center for American Progress’s TAPPED wades into the third in a way that resonates with my own memories of the days before abortion became legal (emphasis mine)

So this leaves us with the pragmatic justifications — essentially, “we would like to punish women, but we can’t because it’s impolitic.” Aside from undermining the case for anti-abortion laws, the problem with this pragmatism is that we need to go further. How effective are laws banning abortion in conditions where most people think women shouldn’t be subject to any punishment for obtaining an abortion? The answer is, “not very.” As Sunday’s episode of Mad Men usefully reminded us, plenty of safe, elective abortions were preformed in hospitals even when it was illegal for doctors to perform them. The effect of criminalizing abortion is not to stop women from obtaining abortions so much as to force those without the right social connections into the black market. So bans on abortion aren’t very good ways of lowering abortion rates, although they do make abortion much less safe for less affluent women. How this can be a good thing is, to put it mildly, unclear.

He said it here.

That sounds about right. I’m old enough to have been a newsboy going room to room in a local hospital back in the days before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion. And, yeah, it’s funny how often “good girls” from nicer neighborhoods could be found in the ob/gyn wing recovering from their “appendectomies.”

The appendectomy rate for girls of less fortunate means was considerably closer to their demographic averages. As were their rates of unplanned, unwanted pregnancies.

This is why, of course, the affluent can remain sanguine about restrictions on abortion in their states and regions: such restrictions have never applied to them. They may choose not to take advantage of the… quiet options available to them. And some may not. But they all know it will always be there for them.