High school dropout Lauren Boebert gave a civics lesson yesterday comparing the fate of dogs in countries with armed citizens to countries without civilian gun ownership. Of America, she said,
“if the citizenry in America is disarmed then we are no longer citizens. We are subjects. You know here in America we have gourmet treats for puppies. We have these amazing groomers for dogs."
If you aren't sure what dogs have to do with guns, Boebert clarifies,
“In Venezuela, they eat the dogs, and it started because they do not have firearms to protect themselves, to defend themselves against a tyrannical government.”
Unfortunately, her scholarship is limited. A quick check of countries with low gun ownership rates reveals that many of them — most of Europe, for example — have low rates of dog eating. Although the citizens of Italy, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg are fond of horse meat. Boebert has yet to address the role of guns in that culinary choice.
But amazingly, her analysis is not the most moronic thing offered by a GOPer recently. Chris Pritt is a West Virginia lawyer specializing in divorce, custody arguments, and child support. He is also an adamant anti-choice advocate. Pritt testified before the West Virginia state house that the possibility of child support payments leads to abortions, because fathers faced with that financial obligation will strong-arm women into fleeing the state to get abortions. So he wants to ban that financial lifeline.
"If she carries through with the pregnancy, he's going to have, possibly, some sort of child support obligation. And, so, what he wants to do is, he wants to — in a sense — encourage her to go and find a way for her to get an abortion. Because he knows that a certain individual — if he has any kind of familiarity with her, he knows that she might be of such a state of mind, she must be in such a vulnerable position that it's not worth everything that he's going to put me through to carry this pregnancy forward. It's going to be easier, it's going to be better, for me to just go and terminate this 'life.'
So she goes over to Virginia or to some other state where she goes and gets the abortion. So, I think that's a really clear possibility if we enact the Second Amendment here, I don't want to be doing anything that is encouraging thugs to go and get an abortion."
His logic is impeccably awful. Financial stress is the leading cause of abortion. And yet Pritt has convinced himself that increasing that stress will decrease the demand for abortion. It is gobsmackingly dumb. And by the end of his speech, he has gone from calling pregnant women weak-minded to saying they are “thugs”.
And what the Second Amendment has to do with abortion is anyone's guess.
Meanwhile, out in Arizona, a new crop of MAGA candidates is set to ensure that the GOP’s descent into insanity continues. Local news anchor Kari Lake, who was once a moderate voice and even a registered Democrat, has swaddled herself in the big lie. Lake is running for the governorship with Trump’s endorsement. And she has absorbed his motivating philosophy.
She has already fired up the prophylactic election denial claims, saying to whoever will listen,
"We're already detecting some stealing going on,"
And she is talking about the Republican primary.
According to election conspiracy theorists, Maricopa County is the hub of all the election shenanigans in Arizona. Bill Gates, Chairman of the Republican-controlled County Board, which oversees the vote in the country's second-largest election jurisdiction, has fought back. He has asked Lake to put up or shut up.
"It is beyond irresponsible for a major candidate in the Republican Party to be making these allegations. If they have proof, they need to provide it."
But as Rudy Giuliani said, also in Arizona,
“We’ve got lots of theories, we just don’t have the evidence.”
And that is the Republican Party today. They live in a post-truth, alternative facts world. Conservatism is a religion, and its adherents prefer faith to reason. They warn of Jewish bankers issuing in a ‘new world order.’ And claim leading Democrats, in cahoots with Hollywood luminaries, run a child sex ring in which children are scared to death so liberals can harvest their adrenaline as a youth enhancer.
They see America as a country where gays have an agenda. Where teachers indoctrinate kids to change their gender; feminists smack testosterone-deficient men around; liberals are gun and Bible grabbers. And Christians are persecuted for their faith.
It is hard to understand how people believe this stuff. Although dragging young kids to Sunday school, and planting them in church pews to be indoctrinated in the unbelievable, is a good start.