Taliban Mentality in U. S. Politics

By: Lorenzo Dee Belveal

I can no longer resist weighing in on this family-planning issue that has recently outgrown national politics and become a international issue, as the President of the United States has undertaken to make his narrow viewpoint prevail around the planet. Such presumption should not go unrecognized! 

For openers allow me to say that I am pro-life, pro-abortion, pro-vasectomy, pro-contraception amd pro-choice. In a phrase, I am in favor of each individual standing as the sole proprietor of his/her own body. I do not believe anyone, regardless of educational status, political position, social placement or civil function is either competent or entitled to manage the uses to which 
another person's body should be put. 

The magic word to my perhaps pedestrian view of this most intimate consideration, is CHOICE. I am fully, totally and unequivocally in favor of personal choice, with the single exception of those instances where an individual has been adjudged incompetent by a court of competent jurisdiction, and ordered to undergo some sort of reproductive intervention for his/her own protection and that of the vulnerable society at large. 

I consider the high-handed inclusion of reproductive rights in the concept of public interest related to protection of family, social order, etc., to be at least outrageous, if not absolutely idiotic. 

People fuck for a variety of reasons, depending on the situation and orientation of the individuals involved: for hire, for fun, for public or private entertainment, out of conjugal obligation, and for other reasons considered good and sufficient by the individuals so inclined. And for different reasons at different times.

A desire for reproduction falls under a totally unique heading entirely. 
Admirable as the paternal instinct may be adjudged, it is totally separate and apart from the human predilection (read: need) for sex. 

Sex is an inherent natural necessity among animals of whatever kind, of which the human animal is but one. Authorities rate the urge to sexual activity to be equal - or occasionally greater than - the natural demands of hunger. The need for sex has little if anything to do with the desire for procreation. It is purely behavioral, first of all. 

Society's interest is sexual activity is understandable, but the use of this inherent concern as an entree to impose laws, incentives or penalties calculated to "manage" the sexual activity of competent individuals is, in addition to being futile, invasive and presumptious, inhuman and deserving of the highest form of public disdain. In a word, such imposition on individual choice stands in obvious contravention of the most basic aspect of human rights, our civil statutes and the fundament of the common law. 

It is my personal conviction that individuals who can generate such a perverse level of interest in the sexual activities of others should, themselves, be the subjects of a good bit of analytic attention. They tend to be dangerous.

Without putting to fine a point on it, is this excessive concern with other people's sexual activities and behavior, not of itself a form of at least passive perversion? Most normal people consider sex to be a private concern. 

This is especially true of men, who presume to establish the rules that women must follow. While I strongly suspect this is a holdover of the ancient concept of "male superiority", it has long since become an absurd artifact of medieval social mores, without either purpose or logic to support it. Male definition of female reproductive conduct boils down to the most distasteful form of sexual exploitation and enslavement. 

There can be no possible humanitarian justification for its perpetuation. 

This kind of de-facto sexual abuse should have no place in a civilized society; much less become an issue of national policy for a supposedly civilized nation. By continuing to belabor this non-issue, we make ourselves and our society, objects of disdain in the eyes of the enlightened world.

I have a variety of reasons to abhor George W. Bush and his egomaniacal
notions of "popular government" by presidential edict, but his stand on the issue of women's prerogative to control their own reproduction activities, standing alone, identifies him as beyond the pale of any reasonable toleration. 

His decision to abandon the Cairo Accord on Population Control sets him apart, as one of the worst enemies women, families and reason itself has ever had. In his unblinking presumptiousness, he stands out - along with the reviled Taliban - as a self-annointed abuser and manipulator of the women among us.

If he ever gets another female vote, it must be attributed to pure ignorance on the part of the voter. She will be voting for her own political overlord, and one who has proven himself to be totally lacking in empathy for either her or her potential offspring. 


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Copyright October, 2002                                                                            Lorenzo Dee Belveal                                                                                      All rights reserved                                                                                  
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