Quote Originally Posted by Ominous Gamer View Post
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This country is full of fence people, and just as full of nuts. Just look at how long it took to weed them out of the Republican primary.
Well, look at how much the GOP has changed since the Reagan era, swinging so far right that even Reagan wouldn't be considered part of its "base". They're letting the social conservative nut-jobs like Gingrich, Santorum, Bachmann, Palin, et al basically hijack the whole party. Huntsman was de-invited to an RNC event after advocating for a third party. He loosely compared that to how China's ruling elite operates, then was roundly criticized by the RNC for that criticism.

Perhaps, but it wouldn't take much to change this if it came down to it. Its not to hard to picture the SCOTUS siding with business interests and their political connections over individuals. What with their recent rulings on eminent domain and personhood.
It's actually more troubling than that, IMO, because states are busy trying to re-define personhood as the religious pro-life extremists dictate: life begins at conception, embryos are people, life begins with ovulation, hormones are abortifacient, the BCP "kills babies", and all sorts of goofy legislation. Their main goal is to overturn Roe v Wade and ban abortion outright, doing it state-by-state. Defunding Planned Parenthood clinics, letting employers opt-out of any female reproductive healthcare insurance, over-regulating gynecologist services so those physicians leave the state (Kansas prime example)...or women under the thumb of legislators instead of their physicians, being required to go through un-necessary procedures -- meant to inconvenience them past the "viability" date, or simply shame them into giving birth against their will.

There IS more religious-based "intervention" in our politics and policy now. There's a case in Fort Wayne, IN <in today's news> where a teacher was fired from a Catholic school for undergoing IVF treatments. Church hierarchy upheld the firing by stating their "employment criteria" requires respect for Catholic tenets, and IVF is considered immoral and sinful. On the flip-side is the Catholic church declaring (R) budget cutting proposals go against church tenets of caring for the neediest among us.