Personal Responsibility

Dear Texas State Representative Tony Tinderholt,

I understand you’ve proposed a new bill in Texas! Mazel Tov! I’m sure it takes a lot of hard work and careful research to be able to confidently bring a new bill to the table. Whenever I hear that a hardworking, elected official in the United States has brought a new piece of legislation into the mix, I always feel so proud at how brave and bold our democracy is. State representatives, such as yourself, have the freedom to bring forth any ol’ idea at all! I love that!

However, I gotta tell you, I’m not a fan of your most recent idea to criminalize women for having abortions. That seems like a truly terrible idea! I’ve pasted your statement regarding your new bill below in red, and my thoughts beneath yours. Thanks for your reconsideration on this important issue.

Right now, it’s real easy.

Ok, cool. Let’s start with your premise that getting an abortion is easy. An in-clinic abortion works by using suction to take a pregnancy out of a woman’s uterus. You can read about how it works by clicking here. I assure you there is nothing easy about this procedure. The doctors and  nurses who are qualified in this field have gone to school for many, many years in order to be able to safely and effectively perform this procedure. They use sterilized tools in hygienic offices. No wire hangers for miles! (Read here about what happens if abortions are performed by people who have NOT gone to school for many years). You’re a Texas guy, right? So I’m guessing you’re a fan of the awesome basketball player Kevin Durant! You know how Kevin is like the BEST basketball player? And he’s worked really hard to be able to play basketball? Like, you could never play basketball as well as Kevin, right!? Cuz he's a basketball expert! Well ... that’s like the doctors and nurses who know how to perform abortions! They've worked really hard to be able to do something really complicated. Just like Kevin Durant.

Right now, they don’t make it important to be personally responsible because they know that they have a backup of, ‘Oh, I can just go get an abortion.'

So first a question here. Who’s the “they” you refer to? You mean women don’t make it important? Lawmakers? Doctors? I’m not crystal clear on your intention here, but I’m gonna go ahead and assume you’re referring to women since that’s who you think oughta be criminalized. So, you think that American women are going around the country having unprotected sex all willy-nilly because they’re like, “Whatever, no big deal! I can always just go and get my uterus sucked later! Let’s party!” Fascinating presumption, Tony! I decided to do a little research to see if that is in fact the case. (Spoiler Alert: It’s not!). Turns out that getting an abortion is quite taxing on a woman’s body. (See all the post-abortion symptoms and potential complications here). It’s not like a party at all! And I should know! I frickin' LOVE parties! The fact is, statistically speaking, 0% of women want to have to have an abortion. 0%.

Now, we both know that consenting adults don’t always think smartly sometimes. 

Truer words were never spoken, Mr. Tinderholt! (Tinderholt is an awesome name, btw! Do you know there’s a fun sexy app named for you? Swipe right! See what happens!) Consenting adults sometimes make really dumb decisions. Like consenting to do it on the beach. Uch, sand gets everywhere! So, if your new bill is just to punish consenting adults, who haven’t thought “smartly,” I assume your proposal aims to punish both those consenting adults? Lemme go re-read your bill and see if I got that right. Hang on.

OK. I’m back! This is so weird, but in your bill you forgot to mention the punishment for the men! You only wanna punish the woman?! Well, that’s not fair, Tony! That would be like if you and I were baking a cake together, and I cracked some eggs and put them in a bowl. And then I held the bowl, while you added all the other ingredients. And then we mixed it all up together! We turned on Barry White and kinda danced a little while we stirred. But then, later when we tasted the cake, and it didn’t taste the way we’d expected, you blamed me for being a bad baker while you went in the other room, watched the game and ate chicken wings. 

Also, when I went back to read your bill, I searched for the part about non-consenting adults. Like what happens if a lady does not consent? (Believe it or not, this happens, Tony! It’s called Rape. 1 outta 6 women in our country have been or will be the victim of rape or attempt of rapes in their lifetime. Here’s some info about it). But you don’t mention that in your bill anywhere! If you submitted this bill in a 7^th grade social studies class, your teacher would give you a great big INCOMPLETE in red marker on your paper! Better go back and try again. And while you’re at it, check out this info about abortions that are medically necessary to save a mother’s life and abortions that prevent babies from being born with fatal consequences.

But consenting adults need to also consider the repercussions of the sexual relationship that they’re gonna have, which is a child.

Yes, every time a heterosexual couple has sex there is a chance their sex will result in a child. That’s one of the reasons we’d love for health insurance policies to cover birth control! Wait, wait! Don't let health insurance distract me! Back to your bill. I was so curious about your word “repercussions” that I decided to look up exactly what you’re proposing as punishment for women who choose to have an abortion. I thought the website I came to first wasn’t real, because it said that the repercussion you’re proposing is JAIL. But sure enough, the more I searched, the more I realized that yup, that’s your plan. You know, 59% of women in our country who have abortions are already mothers. If you send them to jail, who’s babysitting? Also nearly 20% of abortions are performed on girls between the ages of 15-19. You setting up an abortion jail high school? Will you schedule abortion jail high school prom? Approximately one million women and girls in America have abortions every year. The average cost to taxpayers for one year of one inmate’s jail time is about $32,000 a year. That means you’d be adding $32,000,000,000 to the tax payer’s bill in order to jail all those consenting and non-consenting, teenagers and moms! That’s a lotta moola, Tony. 

You might wanna rethink all this! You know, just to make sure you’re taking “personal responsibility.”

The Joy of Knitting

Dear Elizabeth,

I came across your post regarding your unwillingness to sell yarn to women involved with the Women's Movement on your "The Joy Of Knitting" Facebook page. I love knitting, btw! My granny taught me how to knit when I was 8. My granny is 91 now, but still knits blankets for preemie babies every week! She donates them to a phenomenal program at a local church that we don't belong to. Those preemie babies love love love those blankies! They keep the babies so warm! That church does such great work in our community! (FYI neither the babies nor the church care that my Granny isn't Christian! The blankies are non-denominational!) Anyway, your post made me feel so sad for you. I could tell that your heart is so obviously in the right place - wanting to promote values of respect and love and all. So, I hope you won't mind me reaching out to you, with both respect and love in my heart, to offer you an opportunity to release some of that heavy load of hate you've been carrying around! The burden of hatred can really hurt your back! I've pasted your words in red below and commented beneath them ...

With the recent women's march on Washington, I ask that you if you want yarn for any project for the women's movement that you please shop for yarn elsewhere.

Ok. Done! We will respect your wishes and definitely will not shop at your store.

The vulgarity, vile and evilness of this movement is absolutely despicable.

Based on this sentence above, my hunch is you don't have the correct information about the women's movement. Here's the link to the website and here's our mission statement: https://www.womensmarch.com/

We stand together in solidarity with our partners and children for the protection of our rights, our safety, our health, and our families - recognizing that our vibrant and diverse communities are the strength of our country.

See! It's totally based in love! If you're looking for something to call vulgar, click this link to a man bragging about grabbing a woman by the pussy! Isn't that just unfathomable?! I still can't get over the epic nature of that kind of vulgarity! And if you're looking for something vile, click this link to information regarding the massacre on school children in Connecticut. Our gun laws made it so simple for this mentally ill shooter to access murderous guns and ammo, that he went ahead and killed a whole bunch of innocent children and their teachers. There's a lot of info about it actually; here at The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, and here at SmartGunLaws.Org and here at The National Alliance on Mental Illness. If you ask me, that kind of gun violence is about as vile as you can get. Oh, and if you're looking for an example of "evilness," check this out! This is a video of a white man killing a black man just because he is black! Have you ever heard of something so evil? I know. It's truly gutting. Sorry to be such a downer, but it just seemed like you were so far off course on your categorizations of vulgar, vile and evil, that I wanted to help steer you back on course!

That kind of behavior is unacceptable and is not welcomed at The Joy of Knitting.

I AGREE! If vulgar pussy grabbers, vile gunmen and evil racists came to my joyful knitting shop, I would totally un-invite them too! I see your point, Liz.

I will never need that kind of business to remain open. Two wrong will never ever make it right.

(FWIW and for future ref, in that colloquial expression, the word "wrong" ought to be pluralized). OK, so in the above scenario, am I correct that BEING the evil guy is one wrong, and SELLING joyful yarn to that same evil guy is the other? I AGREE LIZ! You know what that's like?! I have the best comparison for this! Ooo, I'm so excited! That's like when owners of perfectly joyful gun stores, sell guns to evil gun shooters! Stores should definitely be so careful about selling to people with evil intentions! There's a whole movement about that. It's called Background Checking. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has so much info about it here! Ooh! Ooh! I just got an idea! What if you started to do background checks at The Joyful Knitting?! That way you'd know if someone was a vulgar pussy grabber, a vile gun murderer, or an evil white supremacist before you sold them joyful yarn! Think it over, Liz. Sleep on it!

As the owner of this business and a Christian, I have a duty to my customers and my community to promote values of respect, love, compassion, understanding, and integrity.

AMEN! Do it! Pah-LEASE! This world needs SO much more of those values above!

The women's movement is counterproductive to unity of family, friends, community, and nation.

Oopsie Daisy! You veered off course again! A) The women's movement loves unity! Men & Women, Men & Men, Women & Women, sometimes to spice things up Men & Women & Women! UNITE, Sister! We are super PRO-UNITY! As far as family, friends, & community go, we are 100% on board! Just ask our families, friends, communities! And as for our nation ... we love this nation and the freedoms and liberties that it stands for SO much, that most of us put all our stuff (even tampons!) in see-through plastic backpacks so that we could march safely and transparently. If sacrificing fashion sense for the greater good isn't love for our nation, I don't know what is!

I do pray for these women. May the God work out His love in their hearts and continue to heal and unite Americans.

God is a personal issue. So I won't bring Her into this. But I will say, that we have love in our hearts, which is the meat & potatoes of every single religion in the whole wide world. JOYFUL indeed!

Pen Pals ...

Man of La Mancha, Senator McDaniel, you certainly don’t sound very Senator-y in your response to the many thousands of Americans who were offended by your comments. If you lived in my house, you would lose your screen time for the rest of the day. Lucky for you, you live in Mississippi! Well, since you were nice enough to write us all back, I figured the least I could do is continue the trend. OMG, I love pen pals! Once I had one in Tel Aviv! I’ll leave my comments below yours.

I'll give you radicals some credit; you have a large number of angry instigators ready for social media action. You've really swarmed this page.

Thanks! FYI, just so you’re prepped, we’re ready for more than social media action. We love all kinds of action. (Not that kind of action! Sheesh! Get your head outta the gutter, Senator!)

Thankfully, 95% of you live outside of MS.

Are you sure about that stat? Check out the Democratic Party’s website in Mississippi. It’s here: http://www.mississippidemocrats.org/ There are a TON of Mississipians who are super pissed about what you had to say. Lots of them have been letting you know all about it. They even have a twitter account (twitter is off the charts popular now cuz the president uses it to let us know when he’s mad at celebrities and politically volatile nations). Anyway, you should check out what some of the people in your state are saying about you on twitter! @MSDEMOCRATS Before you click that link, brace yourself. The democrats in your state pretty much think you’re the worst.

From my perspecitve,

Oopsie! Typo Senator! You can do better than that.

I understand your position. You love free stuff. I get it.

Nope. I don’t think you do. In truth, our position has nothing to do with free stuff! (Although, free gift with purchase during bonus time for Clinique is one of my all time favorite things! Have you ever gotten a Tenderheart lipstick for free? The best!) But no, actually, when it comes to women’s rights, we’re looking for freeDOM. It’s totally different, but I can see where you’d get confused. To clarify for you, in this instance “free” is the base word for “freedom.” We don’t want free stuff, we want free dom. Get it now?

Unfortunately, in your quest for freebies, your so-called "revolution of love" has become little more than intolerant hatred for anyone who disagrees. And that's okay. You have that right.

Whoa Nelly! We don’t call it a “revolution of love.” Where’d you get that? We call it Feminism. (I’ll give you a minute to recover because I know how much that word must get under your skin … ok, I’m gonna keep going now). FYI, if you were playing a game of Opposite Land (which is so fun! Pancakes for dinner!) you would win with your statement re: “intolerant hatred for anyone who disagrees.” A) We don’t hate. That’s too strong a word and our kids aren’t allowed to use it when referring to other people. (You don’t wanna lose your screen time tomorrow too, do you?) B) Our spouses and kids and parents and friends disagree with us all the time and we still love them so much! But, in specific regard to the folks pushing the conservative, right-wing agenda in America, you’re right, we do disagree. We’d love to have a rational conversation about it with you guys. Lemme know if you’re up for it! I’m free Friday morning.

The tragic irony of the #WomensMarch is that most were marching for the "right" to violently end the lives of their unborn, including the lives of little girls.

Hang on, I gotta read that again. Yup. That is what you said. Hey listen, since I’m still in shock that an elected official of my government could say something so desperately vile and insensitive in a public forum, instead of responding to this myself, I’m gonna direct you to this article by my friend, Kelly. http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a54680/why-i-had-a-late-term-abortion/

Making matters worse, you want us to pay for it even though we find the act of abortion to be morally repugnant. And then, because you love free stuff, you believe we should also pay for your birth control. Is there anything else we can help you with? A free cell phone, perhaps?

I think I cleared up the whole “free” thing earlier, yeah? But since you asked a question I can answer with authority, yes, there are some things you could help us with! Here’s a list: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/584086c7be6594762f5ec56e/t/587ffb20579fb3554668c111/1484782369253/WMW+Guiding+Vision+%26+Definition+of+Principles.pdf

Oh, and since you offered, heck yeah, we’d all love a free cell phone! That’ll be approximately 3,000,000 cell phones. Shipping might get expensive. We’re everywhere.

So no, I don't think we will ever agree. And that's okay, too.

What a stinky attitude. I think it would be better if you were open to dialogue and educated discourse, like Jesus. (I only mention him, because I know how much you say you love him).

I don't want your vote.

OoooooK. Weird thing for a politician to say, but … hey, it’s your name on the ballot, buddy.

So bring it.

I will.

Yell, curse, scream, threaten, and ridicule all you wish. I don't care.

I won’t do any of those things. Because I do care.

It's cute.

There’s nothing cute about any of this, Senator. Cute is like a baby Goldendoodle. This is like a stomach flu where you’re vomiting and having diarrhea at the same time. And it’s the middle of the night and you’re lying on the clammy tile of your bathroom while you look up to the Heavens above and try to negotiate with God. “I’ll do anything to be spared from this horrendous nightmare,” you say. “I’ll even try to have rational debate with Senator Chris McDaniel.”

But I'm not going anywhere. The more you push, the more I will resist. Even if I have to stand alone.

Yeah, about that whole standing alone thing. Martin Niemöller was a Pastor during Hitler’s time. He thought Hitler was the worst. So do the women who marched. Niemöller said something I think you could benefit from:

“First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

So, stand alone if you want, but historically speaking … bad idea.  

Oh, one more thing: we are going to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal Obamacare.

As my middle school gym teacher always used to tell us, “Pain is Temporary, Pride is Forever.” (Shout out to Mr. Berardi!) See ya’ on the flip side, Senator. You’ll know where to find us. We’ll be the ones standing all together.

Have a good night.

Based on the tone of your post, I’m pretty sure this is sarcastic. So, whatevs.