For and Against Violence

Many years ago, we sat around our 19” non-HD 4 channel tube televisions late on Saturday nights and laughed at the antics of Gilda Radner as loveable and disgruntled commentator, Emily Litella.  Poor Emily was easily disoriented by the crazy world around her, mostly as a result of her questionable auditory skills and advanced age.  The pressing issues of her day caused her great angst, and she was prone to shouting and raging against the imagined changes in national life.  We laughed and laughed.

Today Emily is no longer with us but thankfully we have a real life Emily Litella, John McCain, to entertain us and not just on Saturday nights.  The Senator recently announced his opposition to something, but we’re not sure what.

Statement from the Office of Senator John McCain:

I’m confused.

As someone who once plucked an armed woman from obscurity in Alaska and placed her unprotected on the world’s greatest stage, I believe that I hold a unique position in American culture to speak out in defense of women and on the protection of women.

Two issues of great importance to women in this country were addressed this week and I believe these issues are clearly at odds with one another.  They are diametrically opposed yet this administration supports them both.  How can that be?

First, the Pentagon announced the end of the U.S. military’s exclusion of women as combat soldiers on the ground.  Up until this week, the Department of Defense policy defended women from such dangerous and unladylike tasks as killing and maiming in close quarters.  Now the finer sex can participate in these patriotic activities alongside their male companions and theoretically be eligible for promotions previously denied because of their lack of combat experience.  This decision will open approximately 237,000 positions to women across the services, including 5,000 positions for female marines in ground combat elements.

At the same time as this decision, Senators Leahy and Crapo re-introduced what I like to call a Crapo Bill, the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).  The VAWA had previously been reauthorized on a bipartisan basis, but the Democrats have since poisoned the bill with extra protections for female criminals like undocumented immigrant women.  This bill as updated federalizes the protection of felons.    

Here is where the conflict lies.  Within days of Democrats vowing to reintroduce the VAWA in Congress, Democratic lawmakers cheered the Obama administration’s decision to subject women to the ultimate in violent encounters, the front lines in a war zone.

The hypocrisy is stunning.

According to liberal orthodoxy, violence on the home front against our mothers, sisters, and daughters must be punished to the fullest extent of the law.  Violence on the battlefield against our mothers, sisters, and daughters however is a virtue to be celebrated in the name of equality.

I know as well as anyone that a woman with a gun is a formidable foe.  But in order to truly treat women as our alleged equals means no special treatment under the law.  That’s what Susan B. Anthony would have wanted, and she was once on a coin.    

Equality means no special protection from angry boyfriends, drunken spouses, or roving urban mobs.  I receive no special treatment from these hazards.  It means allowing women access to the same conceal and carry permits that we lifelong hunters and sportsmen have taken for granted.  Equality is an empty platitude without a gun to enforce its application.  

If women can fight in war, they should be allowed to fight off their enemies on the home front just like a man.  It’s only fair.   

  

We cannot simultaneously fight domestic violence against women while encouraging foreign violence by women.

I’m confused.

For the record, it is a tad confusing, isn’t it?