Most times, we on the left can safely laugh off the manufactured controversies\u00a0of our brothers and sisters on the right. We know they don’t\u00a0really believe Barack and Hillary killed\u00a0four Americans in Benghazi. We know they know\u00a0allowing Medicare to cover end-of-live counseling isn’t\u00a0“death panels.” We know and they know it’s just\u00a0about scoring points.<\/p>\n
But we don’t seem to\u00a0get it when it comes to genuine moral outrage on the right. The push to test\u00a0food stamp and welfare recipients for drug use, along with legislation limiting what can be purchased with EBT cards, comes from a deep moralistic well of resentment toward those\u00a0who are perceived to be getting\u00a0a free ride. We all share that resentment. It’s basic to\u00a0human nature, and scoffing at it isn’t going to make it go away. We need to understand that a lot of voters are totally energized over the outrage they feel toward\u00a0welfare and disability cheats. We need to take their outrage seriously.<\/p>\n
I think the emerging conservative and religious outrage over the latest\u00a0Planned Parenthood video<\/a> is also something we should take seriously. I don’t think this video, already widely debunked, is going to go away. I don’t think the dismissive tone of this Wonkette article<\/a> is going to lessen the video’s impact; in fact, I think the left’s\u00a0smug dismissal of it makes us appear insensitive, elitist, and out of touch.<\/p>\n Sure, the video’s bullshit. It’s a direct descendent of\u00a0James O’Keefe’s hit video on ACORN, and just as phony. It’s misleadingly edited and the people flogging it are liars.\u00a0But behind the misleading edits and lies, there is this: Planned Parenthood harvests\u00a0legally donated tissue and organs from\u00a0aborted fetuses. Aborted late term fetuses.<\/p>\n Did you know that? I didn’t. Probably\u00a0most of us\u00a0didn’t. Well, now we do.\u00a0Now we have to think about it. I guarantee you\u00a0conservatives and religious people are thinking about it (and spreading the story far and wide).<\/p>\n Yes, everything Planned Parenthood does with regard to “donated tissue” is legal and aboveboard, done with the permission of donor parents, done without any attempt to make money off it, done in accordance with standard practices across the medical industry. But god damn it, we’re talking about harvesting tissue and organs from aborted fetuses, and if you don’t see\u00a0why people might be outraged over that\u00a0you need new glasses.<\/p>\n You can say sure, but there’s also outrage on the right over same-sex\u00a0marriage, and we need to be dismissive of it\u00a0because it’s clearly wrong. And you’re\u00a0right. Not that many years ago there was widespread outrage over racial integration. We gave that outrage the scorn it deserved. Today\u00a0(albeit with far too many\u00a0exceptions) that outrage has become acceptance. Outrage over same-sex marriage will eventually fade as well.<\/p>\n I don’t know that people will ever stop resenting\u00a0those they see as\u00a0freeloaders. I don’t know that people will ever not be morally horrified at the thought of harvesting organs from aborted fetuses, legally or otherwise.<\/p>\n We need to understand genuine outrage and address it forthrightly, without belittling half the people in this country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most times, we on the left can safely laugh off the manufactured controversies\u00a0of our brothers and sisters on the right. We know they don’t\u00a0really believe Barack and Hillary killed\u00a0four Americans in Benghazi. We know they know\u00a0allowing Medicare to cover end-of-live counseling isn’t\u00a0“death panels.” We know and they know it’s just\u00a0about scoring points. But we don’t […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10],"tags":[1198,1920,1919],"class_list":["post-16949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","tag-abortion","tag-planned-parenthood-video","tag-welfare-drug-testing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16949"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16959,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16949\/revisions\/16959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}