a few days ago i descended into the comment threads at Political Animal. i haven't been there much over the last six months, and i didn't actually go there with the intention of mudwrestling with any of the platoon of trolls that regularly rotates in and out of there. however, i did have the audacity to post an angry feminist comment in response to a post kevin wrote about the latest asshattery of the Pharmacist's Rights [to discriminate against women] movement. getting angry and expressing it with cusswords being the greatest possible offense a woman, especially a self-identified feminist woman, can commit, the comment immediately drew the attention of a particularly tenacious and nasty little troll.
a pharmacy in Seattle has decided they are 'morally' unable to fill any prescriptions from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services. they turned one woman away who had a prescription for prenatal vitamins and another woman who had a prescription for antibiotics. to put it simply, i've had it with conservatarian arguments about respecting the 'freedom' of pharmacists to practice their profession 'as they see fit' when it is increasingly clear that the 'freedom' in question is the 'freedom' to discriminate against female customers with impunity. the comment that lit the fire in my belly was written by someone using the handle 'jibjab':
"never seem to consider that some people live in rural areas where getting to one pharmacy may be a hassle, let alone trying to shop around."
Suppose the sole pharmacist serving a rural community is suddenly told that he must dispense emergency contraception, in violation of his deeply-held moral beliefs, or he will be fired. He decides to quit rather than be forced to violate his conscience. He's been working there for 20 years, and knows all the local people and is intimately acquainted with their health problems and prescription drug needs. Finding a replacement proves impossible.
You really want to sacrifice the health of that community on the altar of your political correctness, do you? [emphasis mine]
the ridiculosity of this moving tribute to the poor pharmacist having to give up his profession because he can't bring himself not to stick his uninvited nose into the private business of his female customers was just too rich. i also find it amusing (and infuriating) that conservatarians think that naming a position 'politically correct' magically delegitimizes it. then there's the obvious strawman argument that the other poster wants to compromise the health of an entire rural community by forcing pharmacies to deliver an equal level of service to all of their customers. not to mention the laughter-inducing image of the poor crybaby pharmacist quitting his job after 20 years, wiping tears from his eyes as god kills a kitten to commemorate this awful occasion. after that, the hypothetical scenario gets truly ridiculous: the pharmacy can't find a replacement, so the whole community is left without any convenient access to pharmaceutical services. treating women like they have a right to be equally served at a business that serves the public is going to threaten the health of _entire_ communities! those selfish, self-centered women who don't want to be lectured or singled out as morally unworthy of their medications are the problem! it's not the pig-headed asshole [no wait, i mean old, beloved, small-town pharmacist] who objects to filling prescriptions for women managing their fertility in a way he doesn't personally approve.
i was pissed and i opened fire [minor edits for grammatical and spelling errors]:
You really want to sacrifice the health of that community on the altar of your political correctness, do you?note that i didn't single out any specific poster for name-calling. this rant drew the following comment from someone using the handle 'no pills for spacebaby' and the email address 'no@pills.com':
you know what i'm sick of? i'm tired of all the pity, sympathy, and *concern* for those poor business people and pharmacists and their tender, rice paper little souls. when are you free-market, cheer-leading fucktards going to have ANYTHING to say about women who are denied access to a commonly prescribed medication that is part of their BASIC health care needs?
these policies are essentially gender discrimination. women should have a reasonable expectation of being served equally at a place of business that serves the public. i am fucking tired of hearing about the 'right' of pharmacists to be judgemental, moralistic fuckwits by denying women an equal level of service. fuck that and fuck any of you who support that. i hope your mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters disown your bigoted, back-stabbing worthless asses.
free market you say? since when is a market free when half the population isn't being allowed to freely participate in it? oh yeah, i get it. they can 'shop' around in the free, free, free-as-a-bird market full of sanctimonious, panty-sniffing perverts who will refuse to deliver the same level of service they do to their male customers. i can't believe we're even dicussing this like there is even a modicum of ethical justification for treating women like they are second class citizens.
conscience-clause supporters:
please. please find a state where i don't live, take it over, and secede. i'm sick and tired of having to fight tooth and nail just to be treated like an equal member of society. i, as a woman, have every right that any man does to be free of harassment over my private behavior and the measures i take to make that behavior safe and satisfying for ME.
"spacebaby, You is craaaaaazy lady!"
gee, i've never heard that _one_ before. it's probably the first rule in the Debate Manual For The Tiny-Dicked Army Of People Who Are Threatened By Angry Feminists. if you can't actually refute anything an angry feminist says, just call her crazy! i'll admit that i'm argumentative and don't often let a good battle with a troll go unfought:
"crazy? exactly what is crazy about my post? i'm tired of justifiable anger in response to discriminatory policies being called 'crazy'. it's not crazy. it's normal."
this comment drew the astonishingly mature response:"spacebaby, you are anything but normal."
in order to determine if i should be insulted or not, i had to find out what this troll thought was normal. it was entirely possible that i should be quite glad not to be 'normal' by his standards. [minor edits for punctuation errors]:
"define 'normal'. did you perhaps have anything related to the topic of the thread or is this just going to devolve into, 'omigod, she's angry so she must be crazy. she is teh suxxor!' no? didn't think so."
the response that followed was so kindergarten that i actually entertained the possibility that the troll was my brother yanking my chain as a joke:
"The opposite of spacebaby."
i began monitoring the sitemeter at political animal to see if the ip address of my brother's employer showed up in the logs at the same time as a comment from the troll. meanwhile, since trolls just _love_ to put the objects of their attention on the defensive with personal attacks, i decided that it was time to turn the focus on the troll and challenge him to back up his claims [typo corrected]:
"so, basically, you have absolutely nothing of substance to say here, and you are totally incapable of providing even the most mediocre entertainment as a troll.
i ask you again, what did i say in my original post that was crazy or abnormal?"
the troll, as is typical, tried to change the subject:"... nothing of substance ..."
"A perfect description of your 10:06AM post"
i wasn't having that, however:
"A perfect description of your 10:06AM post"
"and what did i say in that post that was crazy or abnormal?"
nevertheless, he proved difficult to dislodge:
"The whole thing is crazy and abnormal."
it was probably annoying for other people who had been reading and participating in the thread. i do have a reputation for hijacking threads in order to fight with trolls after all. i try _hard_ not to do this, but given the fact that troll was SOOOOO trolly and had personally attacked me, i decided to go for it anyway [minor editing for punctuation]:
The whole thing is crazy and abnormal.
why? you graduated from high school, right? you learned how to develop a thesis and provide proof for it, didn't you?
quote specific portions of the post that are crazy and abnormal and explain in a cogent and rational manner why they are proof of insanity and abnormality. you'll also need to provide sourced arguments defining what you mean by 'sane' and 'normal'. Saying something juvenile like "The opposite of spacebaby" doesn't count.
it was at this point that i saw the ip address of my brother's employer in kevin's ip logs, so i thought it was quite possible that he had been playing a prank on me. he has made the conservatarian argument in support of conscience clauses before:yancey:the next comment from the troll was enough to tell me that the hostility expressed in the troll's kindergarten attacks was actually _real_:
if you're playing the troll, stop it. address what i said, or stop yanking my chain. btw, i do take it personally when you get all conservatarian and wax nostalgic about the 'rights' of business to discriminate against members of my gender.
"why?"so, we get to the heart of the matter. i was _angry_ and i used dirty words to express it. call the men in the white coats now! armed with the certainty that the troll was not my brother yanking my chain, i decided to move in for a real engagement [minor editing for typos and punctuation]:
It's just a long, stupid, name-calling rant. You're not making an argument. You're not citing any facts or evidence. You're just venting.
It's just a long, stupid, name-calling rant. You're not making an argument. You're not citing any facts or evidence. You're just venting.i don't think i've ever encountered a more persistent troll. the little fucker just wouldn't give up. that's how i knew i _really_ had pissed him off. once you have a troll pissed off, it's usually not difficult to draw them out into making a complete ass of themselves. but, the troll had already obliged me by making an ass of himself, and he wasn't broken. yet.
this from someone whose handle screams TROLL. coward.
none of this answers my question -- what is 'crazy' or 'abnormal' about my post? you keep trying to make 'angry' mean a lot of other things. since your entire contribution to the thread has been:
#1: spacebaby,
You is craaaaaazy lady!
#2: spacebaby, you are anything but normal.
#3: "define 'normal'."
The opposite of spacebaby.
#4: "... nothing of substance ..."
A perfect description of your 10:06AM post
#5: The whole thing is crazy and abnormal.[in answer to my question -- "what was crazy and abnormal about my post"]
wow, that sure was on topic. i'm sure there's _something_ in there about refusal clauses for pharmacists who object to filling prescriptions for birth control pills, antibiotics for women whose prescriptions came from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services, EC for women who have been raped, vitamins for pregnant women whose prescriptions came from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services, and i guess whatever else a bunch of sanctimonious, finger-wagging daddies find objectionable.
every single one of these 'refusals' just happens to somehow be related to women's sexuality. oh, how _convenient_! it's practically prurient, and it's an all out attack on access to the products and services and that practically every single woman of childbearing age needs. for me personally (you know, someone who has lived and has to live for the forseeable future as a woman of child-bearing age), this whole mess speaks of an agenda that induces the kind of vomit that will eat through a block of lead. just think of me as the alien, and you'll understand the level of respect i have for this agenda.
i am fed up with the all too common willful blindness to the fact that the refusal clause garbage just always happens to be about refusing _women's_ prescriptions.
now, exactly what did i say that was crazy? i think i just said the same thing i said before with less profanity and anger (see note above about acid and block of lead). if you're whining about my rant, i'd like to ask you to explain why a pharmacist's refusal to fill a prescription for antibiotics for a woman who got it from a women's health clinic that provides abortion services is not rant-worthy? how much 'delay' is politically and socially acceptable to you for a woman to face in filling a prescription for antibiotics?
if she had a surgical abortion, it's actually _really_ important for her to be on antibiotics. the abortion in this case has already happened. the refusal to provide antibiotics to a woman the pharmacist thinks has had an abortion is clearly not about preventing abortions. it's about treating a woman suspected of having an abortion like a pariah in a way that compromises her health. what is 'crazy' or 'abnormal' about profanity, anger, and name-calling in response to this? frankly, i find your lack of a similar reaction appalling.
are women to face a future where their access to health care services for their reproductive organs will be steadily, inexorably relegated to the equivalent of the 'colored' clinic at the edge of town with bullet-proof windows and escorts to help them fight through crowds of screaming nutballs? this whole refusal clause movement is about funnelling women towards a few, identifiable providers so it's easy for the really crazy people to find them and harass them.
petty harassment from pharmacists is just the start. over ninety percent of american women use birth control over their lives. it's a basic and fundamental means for women to take control of their lives. throwing up obstacles to filling prescriptions for it by throwing them at the mercy of the pharmacist's moral opinion is not a minor inconvenience. again, what's crazy about my reaction to this? at least it was on topic.
your sum total on-topic contribution is your handle 'no pills for spacebaby' and your email no@pills.com. essentially, you're offended by my rant, and your response is to snidely declare me unfit for the right to easy access to birth control. that makes you a troll and no one qualified to lecture anyone about name-calling or meaningless rants.
you certainly didn't elevate the conversation much with your response to a natural, if not rhetorically brilliant response to this maddening, infuriating, willful blindness to the misogynist agenda behind the refusal clause movement. sorry if you can't see it, but i guess only your personal experience of life matters. no need to consider anyone else's, especially if it's not exactly like yours and totally not if they're angry or upset about your total indifference to it.
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