Sometimes, only a Yiddish word is capable of adequately conveying the disdain of an insult. Chutzpah is infinitely stronger than gall, its most common English translation. It’s also more earthy than hubris, and more all-encompassing than smugness.
And chutzpah absolutely permeates a measure that has been introduced in the Indiana House of Representatives by Representative Curt Nisly. Here is the digest of House Bill 1089:
Protection of life. Repeals the statutes authorizing and regulating abortion. Finds that human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm. Asserts a compelling state interest in protecting human physical life from the moment that human physical life begins. Provides that court decisions to enjoin the law are void. Specifies the duty of Indiana officials to enforce the law. Specifies that federal officials attempting to enforce contrary court orders against Indiana officials enforcing the law shall be subject to arrest by Indiana law enforcement. Redefines “human being” for purposes of the criminal code to conform to the finding that human physical life begins when a human ovum is fertilized by a human sperm. Makes other conforming changes.
Where to begin…
Ignore, for purposes of this rant, the fact that the only life Rep. Nisly is interested in “protecting” is that of the fetus; if the pregnancy threatens the life of the woman carrying that fetus, evidently that’s just too bad.
There is, of course, the enormous chutzpah displayed by a man with no medical credentials–a man who owns a sheet-metal company–who feels entitled to determine when life begins, and the chutzpah of a person who can never be pregnant dictating behavior to those who can be. (Pregnancy, as people with medical credentials will confirm, is a greater risk to women’s health than abortion. But Rep. Nisly is willing to force all women, whatever their medical or emotional or financial circumstances, to assume that risk. No skin off his nose.)
That’s bad enough, but what really is astonishing about this piece of excrement–what demonstrates both outrageous chutzpah and monumental constitutional ignorance–is Nisly’s apparent belief that the legislature can pass a bill that overrules the courts and prevents the executive branch from enforcing court orders.
Checks and balances? Piffle.
Separation of powers? What’s that?
The Constitution? If Trump doesn’t have to read, understand or obey it, why should Rep. Nisly?
Even in a legislative chamber as overwhelmingly rightwing as Indiana’s, this is highly unlikely to pass. (I use the term “rightwing” rather than “conservative” because there is absolutely nothing conservative about people who don’t want to conserve the values of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.) Even our legislature’s dimmer bulbs aren’t likely to endorse a measure that simply ignores our country’s entire legal structure. But you have to ask yourself: who votes for the sort of ignoramus who would propose a bill like this?
And what sort of ego–what monumental amount of chutzpah–does a person have to have in order to run for public office without bothering to understand the government he wants to be part of?
Oh yeah…
“And what sort of ego–what monumental amount of chutzpah–does a person have to have in order to run for public office without bothering to understand the government he wants to be part of?”
Or as we of the lower class define “chutzpah”…what balls!
Ms Suess Kennedy-I continue to admire you and have for decades. Please, please never stop helping us be better. Thank you for decades of leadership and friendship.
Sheila Kennedy, You are only a woman! What right do you have to not defer to the superior knowledge that we White Men have in knowing what is best for all those below us such as people of color, women, children and others. Have you no shame!
God put us on earth to protect you from yourself. After all we are the heads of the household, the vast majority of CEO’s of major firms, the vast majority of politicians, particularly in the Republican Party which represents the highest interests of God!
You can of course see some of us represented at: http://www.OWMCL.org – with a perhaps nuanced view that is a little different from what I have shared with you above.
Shades of Richard Mourdock!
George Marx; I don’t know whether to compare you to Karl Marx or the Marx Brothers, to consider your comments to be tongue-in-cheek or recognize you for a fool.
Just a suggestion to Mr. Marx: Maybe copy and paste a point or two from the platform of your organization.
It IS rather difficult to figure out that it is satire without looking for mention of that.
here’s some information about this Rep:
“Dear Neighbor,
I am humbled and ready to serve House District 22, which includes portions of Kosciusko and Elkhart counties, in the Indiana General Assembly. I will work to address the most important issues facing Hoosier families in our community.
As your State Representative, I’m committed to reducing the size and scope of government on behalf of Hoosier taxpayers.”
Apparently opposing abortion is one of the most important issues facing Hoosiers, behind education, improving infrastructure, economic development and jobs, etc. And reducing the size and scope of government excludes government weighing in and controlling on life’s most personal choices
Wow! Even chutzpah seems insufficient.
George,
I got a good chuckle from your comments. It’s truly sad when all satire must be labeled as such. Seems it sort of defeats the purpose of satire. I wonder what Jonathan Swift would say.
https://ballotpedia.org/Curt_Nisly
If you have not seen the platform Nisly campaigned to win his seat in the Indiana Assembly … take a gander. This is 2020, folks. Who said white men have no rhythm. And, George Marx, you satirical rascal, did you really send a link advocating for the collective liberation of white men on this post? Nisly? In the moment of exalted stupor, is withdrawal so noble not to be considered an act of abortion? Apparently his father had no control.
George Marx,
Interesting website, it’s a shame that somebody would have to educate white men in the art of compassion and empathy, LOL!
One thing that I’ve never understood, if one was to roil about abortion, then why roil about birth control? If birth control, at least most forms of birth control, will prevent conception, then wouldn’t that solve the issue of abortion? I suppose, abstinence would solve that problem, but, I don’t think men would be down for that program. We all know that folks are going to “Do It” for reasons other than procreation, so, the pleasure of “Doing It” usually overrides abstinence. A few hours(?) of pleasure should not equal a lifetime of raising and educating a young one, especially when the young ones parent or parents are not ready physically, psychologically or financially for a responsibility of that magnitude.
So not only are you bringing great angst to the mother, because the father usually disappears, you are bringing a lifetime of misery to the offspring. Thereby perpetuating a cycle of misery, destitution, and grief. I don’t mean to be painting with a broad brush, but, the saying, “children are a poor man’s hobby” is extremely accurate. It’s the poor, the least advantaged who suffer the most from an unwanted pregnancy. But for these authorities, these so-called sheet-metal experts, these self-proclaimed know it all’s, why? Why fight against contraception? Contraception is not scripturally questionable, it’s actually mentioned in a positive light. (1st Corinthians 7:3-5)
People are going to seek pleasure especially in a world that seems so devoid of it. So, family planning can only be done with deciding when and where a person has children. Otherwise, you’re going to continue to see children abandoned in garbage bags or raised in an abusive situation, again, perpetuating misery and grief! The hypocrisy roiling against contraception is truly born of monumental ignorance or a false self aggrandized superiority of knowledge, that’s actually laughable. In a world filled with crime, hunger, war and economic catastrophes, family-planning is the empathetically intelligent thing to do.
Women are not a possession, they are not to be used and abused for a man’s pleasure. Men are just as responsible, even more so, than a woman’s unwanted pregnancy. So then, men should not be making decisions on pregnancy for women whatsoever!
Thanks to those who posted info about Nisly’s campaign. He’s mostly self-funded aside from the NRA and ran unopposed in his carved up district in the general election. #Shocking
In other words, he can champion these kinds of bills because there will be little or no repercussions in his protected district. There is no democracy in Indiana as long as gerrymandering exists.
He doesn’t have chutzpah — he benefits from a protected congressional district like many others in our state. Voters have no way to rid the government of these characters.
Nevertheless, he will be the champion of Indiana Evangelicals for introducing this atrocity.
When I first glanced at Sheila’s piece today I immediately thought Separation of Powers, but it’s more than that. The Separation of Powers clause is vital to bedrock allocation of powers between the three branches of government but it is one of many clauses in that organic law of the land we call the Constitution, and if it is to be so easily violated with adoption of such a clearly unconstitutional proposal as Sheila set forth, then what other powers of any of the three branches of government will be subjected to pillage from another? Shall judges assume the executive’s veto powers? Shall the executive take over the legislative power to tax? Can you spell mayhem?
Thus if we remove judicial oversight of legislative and executive excesses for abortion, then what’s next? Shall we reverse Marbury by legislatively deciding that judges cannot reverse zoning ordinances that allow slaghterhouses within ten feet of schools and churches? Strip them of powers to hold trials for certain crimes such as police killings? Drunk driving? Murder? Where does this end? Big Brothers usually come from the executive branch but here it appears the legislature is to get into the act. 1984 is redefined in 2020 by this proposal in which we have a new and even more dictatorial Big Brother on steroids, and in the spirit of things, perhaps the author of this bill should also insert language to the effect that judges cannot declare this bill to be unconstitutional, thus effectively completing the coup of judicial authority.
Upon reconsideration, I was right the first time. This is a Separation of Powers issue, one I thought was forever answered in Marbury and a truckload of case holdings since. Legislatures are empowed to set the terms of judges, prescribe their respective jurisdictions (criminal, juvenile, probate etc.) and executives may appoint them, but they are not empowered to tell judges on what they may take cognizance of nor how they are to hold in specific fact situations. That is the constitutional function of the judiciary; otherwise we would have governors, presidents, and senators calling up the courts and telling them how to vote which would in turn make judicial independence a joke and the rights of litigants in such cases subject not to the law but to executive and/or legislative whim.
I don’t know anything about the author of this proposal, but if this represents his thinking of how to solve a Roe issue I would hope voters in his district send him back to his cave.
The most important point is that Hoosiers elected him. They are the problem. How do you fix the culture of people put out of touch by not being prepared to deal with the rate of, much less the fact of, progress? They are putting themselves further behind the eight ball that they had put themselves behind for much earlier choices by making more bad choices in order to dig out of what has been inevitable for decades.
I don’t know how to change such people. Does anyone other than the Kochs and Russians?
Indiana does it again…just when we in NC think we have the top of the charts…there you go again. Watch out if Roy Cooper doesn’t get reelected in 2020!
Note, Peggy and others. At this sad time in our history, what has always been known as satire can no longer assumed to be that.
I read an interesting bit of satire on Face Book, concerning Women’s Rights and birth control. It said if a woman had sex with 30 men, she could only get pregnant once during a nine month time frame. However, if a man had sex with 30 different women he could get 30 women pregnant and father 30 babies during a nine month time frame.
Yet, the focus is all about forcing the woman one way or another to force her to give birth. Perhaps if a man got a woman pregnant and refused or was unable to financially support the child and birth mother, he should be forcibly if necessary to undergo a vasectomy. You wonder how this would go over???? (Satire).
There was another bit of satire on Face Book I read. We read and hear a lot about what the “Founding Fathers” intended or would do???? It almost given a mythical quality, like trying to mind read.
In any case if the “Founding Fathers” could be gathered somehow to weigh in on the 21st Century issues, the gathering would be all the elite White Men; women, blacks, and native Americans would not be allowed in the room. This fantasy gathering describes rather well the GOP.
ML,
That’s why you have all of these originalists, complete devotion to the original document without letting it evolve with time. Maybe they were all Nostradamus and could foresee the future, although I highly doubt it because they never admitted as such.
The founders were magnanimous in their own minds, and probably magnanimous during the times of their lives, but extremely antiquated now.
Originalist is just another word for subjugation!
John Sorg, thank you. Everything you said, so sadly sadly true.
It it passes (and I hope it won’t), Hoosier taxpayers will once again pay the costs to unsuccessfully defend a law that was known to be unconstitutional.
The GOP has, for too long, been run by forces of ignorance and bigotry. I usually have to spend a couple of minutes to explain why I am running as a Republican in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District. I am pro-choice – do I need to list the reasons? They’re set forth well both in Professor Kennedy’s blog and in replies here – and a GOP-nominated Justice (Blackmun begat by Nixon) wrote Roe v. Wade. I also am pro-war – meaning I believe if we are to commit our military, unless we are under surprise attack by another country (e.g., Pearl Harbor) we have to declare war. If we cut our defense budget in half we’ll be far more secure. There are people who will not vote for a Democratic Party candidate. (This is Indiana – a lot of you should know what I mean), but who cringe at the thought of the current Republicans (begat of Jim Bopp). Sorry if this is inappropriate as a campaign thing, but I thought it germane (although we have been at peace with the Germans since May 7, 1945).
It’s one thing to be as dumb as dirt. It’s another to take time out of a busy day to publicize and prove it. Nisly is apparently frustrated at not having joined the kakistocracy earlier, and is hell bent on making up for lost time.
I like the quote John Sorg’s cited. I wonder how many of Nisly’s ilk sign up for this advice to the citizens of Corinth: Do not deprive each other (of married sex) except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. No doubt Pastor Pence does.
Amen!
Joan White,
Thank you! I tried to shorten it up a bit, LOL in hopes of it being read Worthy. Some folks still prefer the 200 characters or less, I’ve never been part of that club.
I will say, I find it interesting that the church being against contraception is all, uses a scripture and an incident relating to Onan. And they have it all backwards. Onan did not have judgement against him for spilling his semen, as it says, on the ground. The judgment was, he was supposed to impregnate his dead brother’s wife so his lineage could continue. That was the law during those antiquated times, and he paid with his life for violating that law. By having relations with his dead brother’s wife and pulling out to spill his semen on the ground.
So it wasn’t a judgment against contraception, it was a judgment against the law, it had nothing to do with contraception. Once again, the church manipulates scripture to create a false narrative.
Terry Munson,
I’m glad it made sense, lol. I’m just out here trying like you.
Pete – “The most important point is that Hoosiers elected him.” That’s why the term-limits movement exists, to stop other people from picking their elected officials. 8)>
Sorry, we are stuck with the Hoosiers that make up the Indiana populace and their choices of elected officials.
John Sorg – I always used to wonder why there was such opposition to birth control in the anti-abortion movement. I had suspected that it was the “sex is pleasurable, pleasure is sinful, therefore, sex should only happen for procreation” meme, but then I had a discussion about this with a friend of mine – really, really nice guy with horrible political views.
His take was simple. Sex should only happen in marriage and then (this I didn’t get into this part with him) only for procreation.
Pregnancy is a “punishment” which SHOULD happen if rule #1 isn’t followed and anything that removes that “punishment”, be it abortion or pre-conception/pre-implantation birth control, is just wrong. He was serious. He only wished that every extra- and pre-marital sex act resulted in pregnancy.
BTW – thank you for the exposition on Onan. That is the first time I have heard this so clearly stated — ever.
Len,
LOL, your friend might be a nice guy, but religiously he’s not too bright! I don’t know if you can blame him per se for his views, because those views were taught to him somewhere. More than likely whatever church he attended.
If pregnancy was a punishment, then there would not be a population on this earth. During the early parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, especially in Genesis, there was no ceremony for acquiring a mate. Basically you both agreed to cohabitate. Only much later were there actual ceremonies.
Epicurus, founder of the Epicurean school of philosophy, espoused that man should live as happily as possible by whatever means necessary, “eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die” the other “school of thought” (which is actually where the phrase came from, all of the different philosophical schools) was the philosophy of asceticism or self-denial. Be miserable all the time, no pleasure in life, no enjoyment, intercourse is for procreation, anything else is an abomination.
This very Greek philosophical viewpoint was combined with Christianity, and the church to use as a bludgeon against its subordinates. It started in earnest with the Roman Emperor Constantine which with the Greek philosophical teachings and his own pagan religion, combined everything into the Christian church, they then later on purposefully misconstrued the account of Onan to promote a false narrative.
The account of Onan is at (Genesis 38:6-10) and the reasoning behind him not impregnating his dead brother’s wife Tamar was so he could be the inheritor of his dead brother’s fortunes because his older brother did not have a heir. That’s why he committed Qoitus interruptus, he did not want to father an heir that would usurp him in inheritance as the leader of Onan’s family clan. So Onan failed his obligation under the law, he was then put to death, following in the footsteps of his older brother Er.
If you read the entire account it’s quite fascinating, but for the church to use this particular instance as an example that contraception is wrong, is sadly mistaken and purposefully misrepresented.
Your friend, really needs to do some research, this isn’t rocket science, there are a lot of misconceptions about Scripture which are not accurate. Many years ago, this was not what I had envisioned, but coming from a family with a very large international belief system, one would have to sort through the nonsense to find the truth. And all that takes is reading. And Len, it was my pleasure, I actually feel like I’ve accomplished something, LOL.
Len,
I apologize for saying that your friend wasn’t too bright, neither am I for that matter, LOL, but it just irritated me to see how people parrot information that is so uninformed and out of bounds. This is how human cohesion is disrupted. Why so many refuse to become informed concerning what they speak about. It really is a dirty rotten shame, but I’m sure it’s by design! The only way you can fight this sort of thing, is with facts and truth, folks can try to debate what’s in Scripture, evangelicals can claim anything they like, but when you show them and make your case by their own means, they usually don’t have much to say. So I’m sorry for saying that about your friend, I should know better.
Len Farber and John Sorg; interesting conversations regarding creation. I have questioned for years about Adam and Eve being the first humans created, and with the ability to procreate being only sexual intercourse, why is it considered the “original sin”? I think Eve “eating the apple” was a metaphor for having sex with Adam. They created two sons Cain and Abel but where did their wives come from if Adam and Eve were the only two available to procreate? If they provided two daughters to become wives of Cain and Abel, did the entire world population begin with incest? If the Bible is to be believed, does anyone else wonder why God created animals, fish and fowl before creating “man” then ordered all of them to “be fruitful and multiply”; again with sexual intercourse the only available source? Genesis 1:27; “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he them, male and female created he them.” This raises questions in my mind regarding the LGBTQ issues facing humanity and the courts today due to the Biblical description of creation of “man” in the general use of the term.
John’s account of Onan in the Bible makes me question the moral issue of that story; and the Bible consists primarily of stories created by men based on their personal explanation for all issues. Onan’s issue was regarding his dead brother’s lack of an heir and inheritance of his money and property; that could be the oldest Biblical proof that sex and “follow the money” are always the basis of all issues.
Scripture according to Jo.
It’s possible (likely) that this bill was developed somewhere else and Nisley is just the conduit to introduce it in Indiana. Check out Project Blitz: https://www.au.org/tags/project-blitz