October 4, 2006

Concentrating on “senseless social issues that distract and divide us."

Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle and his Republican challenger Mark Green both spoke at a Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce last night:
Doyle decried the use of “senseless social issues that distract and divide us,” and said the state needs to remain focused on the “growth agenda” he’s charted in his first four years as governor....

Doyle drew the only applause for either speaker when he said, unlike Green, he supports “a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices, even in cases of rape or incest,” He also said, “I do not agree with my opponent, I do not believe we should be carrying loaded guns in our pockets,” and decried efforts to “write discrimination into our constitution,” a reference to the ballot initiative to ban gay marriage and legal recognition of anything substantially similar to marriage for unmarried couples....

Doyle talked about stem cell research from a personal perspective, referencing his mother’s 30-year battle with Parkinson’s disease. Ruth Bachhuber Doyle died in May at the age of 89.

“To me it is unthinkable that we would stop the research that has the potential of having other people not have to suffer what my mother suffered,” he said.
So, yeah, damn these candidates with their manipulative social issues.

24 comments:

Icepick said...

So, yeah, damn these candidates with their manipulative social issues.

Nicely done.

Anonymous said...

A couple of posts down it's those evil Republicans whose cynical use of social issues is dividing us.

Thank you, Ann. I appreciate that you have an equal-opportunity BS call-out policy.

MadisonMan said...

None of the above would be a nice option.

Laura Reynolds said...

The whole focus on senseless issues is so... senseless.

Nice BS call-out

Bruce Hayden said...

It is interesting that Doyle can get away with his anti-gun rights position in Wisc. In the states north and west of there, almost to the Pacific ocean, that statement about guns would lose the election for him, just on that one issue alone. This is part of why Wisc. is so interesting politically.

Even here in CO, we know that the Democrat, having been the Denver DA, is in favor of strong gun controls. But he isn't about to make any statements to that effect. Rather, he is running on the fact that he is a good Catholic, and is thus not as liberal as everyone thinks. If Ritter here in CO had said those things, he would be toast, instead of our likely next governor.

MadisonMan said...

Hey, maybe Doyle is pro-Gun Safety. It's lunacy to carried a loaded gun in your pocket. Reach in to retrieve your keys and blammo!

Simon said...

Yes, damn those pesky politicians, always focussing on issues that voters think are important! When are they going to start ignoring what's on voters' minds, on start focussing on the REAL issues?

MadisonMan said...

Fenris -- I would hope the Gov would allow each school district to choose whether to have Gun Safety classes. They're probably much in demand in, say, the Wisconsin Heights or Viroqua school districts that are in Farming Communities where hunting is common. Less demand in suburban Milwaukee. How many kids at West Bend East hunt?

When State Officials start telling local school districts what to do (invariably without paying for it), it usually means I have to grab my checkbook.

Brian Doyle said...

Does Doyle support gun safety classes in school, or does that argument only apply for rolling condoms on bananas?

Right. We know that the vast majority, if not all kids are going to be using firearms eventually, so it's only responsible to teach them gun safety.

Abstinence from guns is unrealistic.

Brian Doyle said...

FYI -

I am not Gov. Jim Doyle.

If I were I'd come up with something pretentious like Sprezzatura.

John said...

"Yes, damn those pesky politicians, always focussing on issues that voters think are important! "

Worse. It's only the issues that "distract and divide us" that are not important.

If only we all thought the same as Governor Doyle and those he represents, then we'd all be better off and be able to live in a wonderful and united world. Isn't that what diversity is all about?

John said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Simon said...

"My point is that politicians who decry gun violence rarely apply the justification for Sex Ed programs to handgun safety. That tells me that "violence" is just a stalking horse for them. They have other unspoken reasons for banning guns."

You're asking for consistency from people that routinely castigate originalism, yet unhesitatingly put forth a quasi-originalist argument to constrain the meaning of the Second Amendment?

Maxine Weiss said...

Oh my goodness gracious.

When I first started reading this post....I thought "Doyle" meant that commenter from New York.....

I never read titles....

You really should have clarified in the body that "Doyle" was ...Jim Doyle,

..and not the other.

Seriously, I read through the whole post thinking we were talking about that bratty commenter "Doyle"....and being amazed ....

...before I went back up and read the title.

Peace, Maxine

Fitz said...

This hearty perennial about divisive “social issues” used by Republicans to “drive wedges” rather than solve “real” problems always plays well to a crowd, but not the ballot box.

The voter’s care about the definition of marriage, abortion, gun rights and the like; the idea being that important issue’s are only “divisive” when they don’t cut that way for democrats.

MadisonMan said...

Kirk, I'm pretty sure Be Like Minnesota! will not work as a campaign slogan here in Wisconsin.

Brian Doyle said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Revenant said...

Right. We know that the vast majority, if not all kids are going to be using firearms eventually, so it's only responsible to teach them gun safety.

I realize you *thought* you were being sarcastic, but the truth is that the vast majority of kids will, in fact, wind up using firearms eventually. 67% of adult Americans, and 86% of adult American men, have fired a gun at least once. Just because you're some loser leftie who shits his pants at the thought of self-defense doesn't mean the rest of the country is.

So yes, it is only responsible to teach kids gun safety.

MadisonMan said...

michael a lischter, your humor detector is malfunctioning.

Simon said...

Revenant said...
"So yes, it is only responsible to teach kids gun safety."

While I agree with you on this point, aren't you now vulnerable to the precise opposite point? If the significant percentage of Americans will use or encounter firearms in their lifetime merits educating children about firearms, even if their candy-ass liberal parents don't really approve of guns, isn't the case yet stronger that we should be teaching children how to have sex responsibly, not just abstinence?

I don't object to abstinence education, but I do object to abstinence only sex ed, which is what some conservatives want. I think the former is healthy, the latter is the ostrich-model of social policy.

Revenant said...

If the significant percentage of Americans will use or encounter firearms in their lifetime merits educating children about firearms [...] isn't the case yet stronger that we should be teaching children how to have sex responsibly, not just abstinence?

When have I ever supported abstinence-only education? I'm all for decent sex ed in schools. Hell, I'm for the government handing out free condoms and birth control pills no-questions-asked. The fewer unwanted children the better.

But as for which is more important, I think gun safety is. Learning how to use a gun properly, while not rocket science, is a lot trickier than learning how to put on a condom, and the implications of incorrect gun handling are a lot worse than those of incorrect condom handling. After all, the by far most likely result of condom misuse is pregnancy, and abortion's legal.

Clampett said...

Well, these issues are entertaining, in terms of the skirmishes they create.

Look at gun control. People here seem to be interested in it.

Or, are they, like me, interested in the hijinks that happen when mcveigh wannabe militia crazies face off against spineless soccer mom rosie o'donnel groupies?

All prohibitionary gun legislation including and after the machine-gun stamp act of 1934 is perversly unconstitutional and we know it.

well, in justice to the utopianists.. we all can't take the time to become proficent in the use of firearms. 40% of cops who were shot got shot with their own gun.

Firearms aren't always in the right place at the right time, so there needs to be a degree of control over their proliferation.

Revenant said...

Firearms aren't always in the right place at the right time, so there needs to be a degree of control over their proliferation.

If you say so. But given that the governments of the world have killed an order of magnitude more people than the private citizens of the world, I'm not inclined to worry that the *people* are too heavily armed. Guns are dangerous, but nowhere near as dangerous as government power is when not counterbalanced by an armed citizenry.

Clampett said...

Kirk, no.

I was juxtaposing the PR message of both sides:

The RKBA-NRA crowd likes to cast their opponents as drones to the nomenklatura wannabe liberal elite whose agenda is possible only because their constituency is stupid, sheep-like, dependent on government, rapeably open to Propaganda and perhaps most importantly, has a collective historical memory a tad shorter than 4 weeks.

The MMM-handguncontrolinc crowd likes to paint their opponents as mean spirited backwater closet Harris & Klebold worshiping hick idiots with small penises whose desire to own weapons is rooted in a mixture of ignorance, arrogance and sexual inadequacy.

Clearly, the overwhelming majority of people who care about these issues are not idiots and do not fit the mold of the gun/antigun PR.

But, you know how politics work here, it's easier to have a cause if your opponents seem repulsive.

I think It’s entertaining in so far all ‘banned’ weapons are grandfathered in.. So, It’s not like the laws actually work or anything like that.



Reverant,

I agree in theory that if the people are actually running the government, (not the other way around) they should be armed to an equal degree….well that just doesn’t work out in a world of ICBM’s and Stinger missiles, now does it..

With Firearms, I see no reason why a taxpayer can’t own a fully automatic weapon such as say, an MG-42 with a 500 round belt, without going through a Kafkaesque labyrinth of paperwork and pigovian taxation.

It’s absurd to ask the whole population to give up liberties as to accommodate those who harm others in the process of breaking the law.

But, some people, I think, just shouldn’t have any guns.

To me, That includes most of the wannabe cops in the BATF…in all seriousness it would include people under the age of 18, people convicted of violent crimes, people with restraining orders on them, the Insane, the drug addicts and other riff-raff with a statistical inclination towards violence.