The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Renee Ellmers’ Incoherent Logic

Posted on | January 23, 2015 | 44 Comments

Do we want rapists to be prosecuted for their crimes? Yes. How can rapists be prosecuted, if their victims don’t report the crime? They can’t. It would seem logical, therefore, that anyone who wants to prevent rape would be in favor of incentives that encourage victims to report these crimes to police. But good luck explaining that to Renee Ellmers:

The debacle over an abortion bill quickly pulled from the House floor Wednesday didn’t have to happen that way, says Rep. Renee Ellmers, who started the rebellion against the measure to begin with. . . .
Ellmers supports banning abortion past the midway point of pregnancy — which is what the bill the House originally planned to pass Thursday would have done. But she wants it tweaked so that women who have been raped don’t have to report it to law enforcement before they can obtain an abortion.
The measure, which leadership still intends to bring for a vote at some point, would ban abortions past 20 weeks of pregnancy unless a woman has been raped or her life is in danger.
Ellmers said she’s pushing for removing the reporting requirement because it’s hard on women who may not want to notify law enforcement. A majority of rapes in the country go unreported, she noted.

We presume that Ellmers believes it is a bad thing that so many rapes go unreported, and this law would help encourage victims to report the rapes, so therefore . . .? What’s the problem here, ma’am?

“When we come off as harsh and judgmental, we stop that conversation and we’ve got to learn to be doing a better job,” she said.
And now that Republicans have majority in both the House and Senate, any legislation they pass must be carefully vetted to make sure it’s not viewed as harsh by women or young people, she said.

Oh, that’s it. She’s afraid of a perception.

It’s a public-relations problem. Also, it’s a problem of an education system that leaves people unable to think logically or to understand a logical argument. But people who don’t think logically vote Democrat anyway, so it’s not really a problem.

Maybe somebody should explain this to Renee Ellmers. Or else find a primary challenger who can understand basic logic.

 

Category: Abortion, Congress, Renee Ellmers

Comments

44 Responses to “Renee Ellmers’ Incoherent Logic”

  1. Bob Belvedere
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:07 am

    Ahhhh…so the verdict is in: Mzzz. Ellmers is a full-on Leftist Drone [yeah, Renee, I’m being judgmental – bad Bob].

  2. RS
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:09 am

    Ellmers’ logic is consistent within her own reality. That is, where “rape” has a very fluid definition and behaviors, which would otherwise be deemed consensual or at worst bad judgment, can be defined as “rape” months after the fact, it is logical to forgo filing an immediate complaint of sexual assault. One first must consult with the various feminist oracles before making that determination and subsequent denunciation of the perpetrator.

    Preferably in a book for which one has been paid a hefty advance. Further, you don’t want to crow the chapter of the courageous abortion which adds to the narrative’s bona fides.

  3. Gunga
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:14 am

    Republicans. Charlie Brown. Lucy. Football.

    Someday we won’t fall for it. BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!

  4. Dana
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:25 am

    This is a huge problem amongst the feminist “leadership.” Many women don’t report rape, because they are too emotionally distraught and aren’t thinking coolly at the time, and also because law enforcement asks the victims tough questions, questions which have to be asked, and asked promptly, to find and prosecute assailants, but which are hard on the victims nevertheless.

    What really needs to happen is for the feminist “leadership” to push the message that yes, reporting rape is hard, but not reporting rape is even harder on the next victim.

    Is that an unfair burden for women to bear? Yup, sure is, but there’s nothing that can be done about it; that burden will always be there.

  5. Fred Beloit
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:26 am

    Leftists don’t do logic.

  6. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:30 am

    Don’t go full retard…

    I get with abortion perceptions matter…but those perceptions go both ways.

  7. Frank Ch. Eigler
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:57 am

    please make your point

  8. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:04 am

    Ellmers in worrying about leftist “perceptions” damaged herself with her base and confirmed that the GOP has as much interest in addressing abortion as the NFL has in inspecting Tom Brady’s balls.

  9. Evi L. Bloggerlady
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:17 am

    http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=2122 A bit OT and something we see all the time with leftists and feminists, but the GOP establishment engages in variants of this too. H/T BenK at AoSHQ.

  10. Jim R
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:24 am

    I offer a weak defense of Ellmers (very weak, the backstabbing Benedict Arnold…):

    1. Women who are raped (and I mean, as per Whoopie Goldberg, rape-raped) are badly traumatized and often humiliated. They are ashamed of what happened to them and believe – sorry to say, often rightly – that even people close to them will think it at least partially their own fault. With this in mind, I can understand not FORCING them to report

    2. As I understand it (and please correct me if I’m wrong), the abortion doesn’t destroy any evidence per se because, by the time the woman has it or even takes the Morning After pill, any hope of a rape kit being effective at collecting the sort of evidence needed to put the brute behind bars is gone. Therefore, there shouldn’t be a direct connection between abortion and rape reporting.

    Rape is an ugly crime, and dealing with bad crimes makes for bad laws. We want to prosecute rapists (personally, I’m for hanging the bastards in cases of violent rape, and burning at the stake for rape of small children). We DON’T want to prosecute the “Barrys” out there who are accused of “sexual assault” perhaps years after the fact by “unreliable narrators”. We want to encourage women to come forward, but that means subjecting them to humiliating questioning and medical exams after they’ve already been brutalized. And…

    Do we really think that abortion ought to be legal in cases of rape? After all, the baby isn’t the guilty party, so why should he have his life ended?

    What to do?

    All that aside, I regard Ellmers as a disappointing milquetoast, just the sort of RINO who has enabled Dingy Harry, SanFran Nan, and Barry to bring our country to its present ruinous state.

  11. Jim R
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:25 am

    I doubt that people like Dunham, Erdeley, and “Jackie” have any idea just how badly they’ve harmed women in our country by turning “rape” into something that it’s perfectly acceptable to lie about.

  12. Jim R
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:26 am

    Well said!

  13. kbiel
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 11:33 am

    Give Ellmers a break. She’s right that the rape exception in the bill was a problem. She was just right for the wrong reasons. Let’s see it amended to the rape exception removed entirely and pass it as a straight ban on abortions after 20 weeks. We can sell it to the Democrats as it bringing us in line with our betters in Europe, most of whom already ban abortion after 20 weeks.

  14. Captain Obvious
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 1:18 pm

    Considering the leftist push for educational institutions to have every innocent pat on the back characterized as an “uninvited sexual assault”, linking abortion to reporting a rape is a terrible idea. The only women who are going to be looking for an abortion after 20 weeks anyway (when it’s, you know, really inconvenient to their hook-up lifestyle) are wackadoo feminists … The huge unavoidable result of such a policy would be nothing but a spate of feminists making false rape reports and ruining twice as many innocent lives. I don’t know if that’s the logic Ellmers was using away from the media but I happen to strongly agree with the conclusion. And yeah, perception is an important part of being a politician. If I was to go on camera and plainly state my valid concerns, the media would crucify me for “accusing rape victims of making it up”. You know it to be true. I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt that she had to come up with a more PC rationalization for the cameras.

  15. Daniel Freeman
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 1:34 pm

    Or by turning “rape” into something that you have to put in scare quotes.

  16. Quartermaster
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 2:16 pm

    That’s called discernment, not judgment.

  17. Trespassers W
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 4:38 pm

    Abortion in rape cases piles REAL guilt on top of perceived guilt. (Same with incest.)

  18. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 5:42 pm

    That’s the travesty here, she’s not a leftist or at least no more than the rest of the Republican establishment. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone in leadership put her up to this. They’re scared of 2016 especially for the senators from blue states. Ellmers herself has nothing to worry about. Her district has been custom gerrymandered to insure her reelection, not just any Republican but her specifically. North Carolina is still the most efficiently gerrymandered state in the country.

  19. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 5:53 pm

    Where does her most rapes go unreported stat come from?

  20. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:10 pm

    Her motive are ulterior.

  21. Art Deco
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:10 pm

    If the capsule biographies of her fairly represent what she’s about, it’s a reasonable inference that her problem is that she’s the Republican equivalent of Blanche Lincoln (who was also a lapsed nurse): not up to the job due to raw intellectual deficiency or because of certain habits of mind. It would appear she dislikes data and prefers story and illustration and tends to respond to conflict with feminine lulling behaviors (e.g. pointless temporizing). That’s not a problem in certain settings (and may occasionally be helpful in disagreeable workplaces), but she’s a public officials, not your mother.

  22. Art Deco
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:11 pm

    I’m not sure she has a well developed set of political principles. That’s her problem.

  23. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:12 pm

    Bingo.

  24. Art Deco
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:14 pm

    It’s stupid to call people RINOs. The term has been applied to, among others, three of the last 4 Republican presidential nominees.

    I doubt her problem is ideology. It’s character and perhaps temperament, which are different things.

  25. Art Deco
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:17 pm

    I think there’s a difference between ‘the GOP’ and it’s execrable congressional leadership. I do regret that McConnell and Boehner were not knocked off in primaries. They’re really unsuitable for their jobs, but there does not appear to be a critical mass of discontent which would dislodge them.

    North Carolina Republicans, post-Helms, do appear to be studded with people suffering delusions of adequacy. Richard Burr is another one.

  26. Art Deco
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 6:19 pm

    Ellmers in worrying about leftist “perceptions” damaged

    I’d put at least a three figure sum on the proposition that the woman has been other-directed her whole life and responded to human problems by seeking strategems for papering over them. Just a guess. She seems a recognizable type to me.

    You may be right someone put her up to it. She strikes me as the sort whose opinion is that of the last person who spoke to her.

  27. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 8:57 pm

    She’s a nurse she and her husband ran a clinic in Dunn NC

  28. Phil_McG
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 9:12 pm

    Abortion should be illegal and abortionists should be hanged along with other common murderers.

  29. Adobe_Walls
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 9:18 pm

    She’s just a squish, she doesn’t have an ideology or principles for that matter.

  30. Jim R
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:01 pm

    I see your point, though I suggest that one can be “in name only” through fecklessness as well as dishonesty.

  31. K-Bob
    January 23rd, 2015 @ 10:31 pm

    Pandering to young single women is just a stupid strategy. So is pandering to illegal aliens. In fact, pandering to any of these groups is like tying your shoelaces together before climbing into the starting block.

    Making excuses for the pandering ALWAYS comes off as incoherent. But the ones doing it evidently need to be educated by getting hammered at the polls. “Experience is a hard teacher, but fools will have no other.” — The Ben Franklin version of an ancient saying

  32. Adobe_Walls
    January 24th, 2015 @ 12:25 am

    I don’t totally disagree with your characterization of her except the part about intellectual deficiency she is far from stupid. When she ran in the primary she was very well spoken and prepared. She had boned up on the constitution (Tea Party fever was big at the time) and unlike her two opponents could answer questions as to content and article or amendment. There was a big republican turnout for that primary as the Johnston Co Republican party had ”allowed” a primary opponent to run against the extremely popular Steve Bizzell who is still county sheriff.

  33. Adjoran
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:16 am

    Well, she voted for identical language in 2013, and now says the new bill was different in some way. She needs to explain exactly how it was different, and why it matters.

    Apparently this caught everyone by surprise, had not been a issue. But of course it’s all symbolic anyway, since Democrats will block it from coming to a Senate vote.

  34. Adjoran
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:42 am

    I suspect you are on the right track, although she voted for the same provision in 2013. This illustrates the biggest problem with the rape and incest exceptions (life of the mother has always been an exception, but is very rare): the crime may not always be reported in a timely fashion, but not requiring a report creates a loophole any liar can take.

  35. Adjoran
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:45 am

    Absolutely. Rape and incest victims have the unrestricted right to abort up until the cut-off of 20 weeks. You don’t have to require a report, just that they act sooner.

    I think China and North Korea are the only other countries that permit abortion beyond 20 weeks, I think.

  36. Adobe_Walls
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:54 am

    Why would a woman who feels compelled emotionally not to report being raped wait 20 weeks? She’s likely to start showing by then which would only make her situation more difficult. What is the incidence of rape resulting in pregnancy in the first place.

  37. K-Bob
    January 24th, 2015 @ 4:56 am

    Jindal was making this same point about other countries’ laws on Fox the other day, and it’s damn effective. I wish the GOP had gotten people like him out in front of this thing before they just slotted it in for a vote. It’s more proof to me that Boehner was using it to hamstring conservatives and not to actually try and accomplish something on the abortion issue.

  38. K-Bob
    January 24th, 2015 @ 4:58 am

    I think “young woman” is more appropriate. Like under age 18. Being scared leads to poor decisions. I don’t think older women would wait that long (some probably, but not most).

  39. K-Bob
    January 24th, 2015 @ 4:59 am

    Her and 95% of Congress.

  40. Matthew W
    January 24th, 2015 @ 10:49 am

    Since all sex is rape………………

    I’m curious as to how often pregnancy occurs due to the rape?
    Seems mostly like a straw man

  41. Daniel Freeman
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:20 pm

    Well, she voted for identical language in 2013, and now says the new bill was different in some way.

    To me, that is evidence for Captain Obvious’s theory below, that she is actually concerned about perversely incentivizing false rape accusations. The language didn’t change — but Lena Dunham and Sabrina Erdely changed its meaning.

  42. Squid Hunt
    January 24th, 2015 @ 3:26 pm

    If your own base doesn’t trust you and refuses to vote for you, why would anyone else? Way to inspire the masses again, GOP.

  43. Daniel Freeman
    January 24th, 2015 @ 4:58 pm

    That’s an interesting point. Abortion exceptions for rape and incest just add manslaughter to the list of wrongdoing, and turn the victim into a perp.

  44. Daniel Freeman
    January 25th, 2015 @ 6:32 pm

    The more people understand kafkatrapping, the better. There won’t be any more people that do it, and might even be less.