My anti-choice congressman is pro-choice in private life...says butt out.

[madfloridian]

There have been some delightfully snide letters in a local paper lately, wittily done. Here is one.

Putnam's Family Choices

I read with interest the letter from Roger Bergere <"Encourage Small Families, July 15> in which he chided Rep. Adam Putnam for having a third and very recently a fourth child. Mr. Bergere's basic point was that every couple having four children would create a population explosion that would be detrimental on all fronts, especially for the environment.

Mr. Bergere went on to mention that he had written a letter to Mr. Putnam approximately three years ago, after the Putnams had their third child, expressing this exact point.

The answer Mr. Bergere received from Adam Putnam was astounding in its clarity.

Note the following: "Mr. Putnam answered me that this was a personal matter and, as a believer in individual rights, family size was no one else's business."

Absolutely! How enlightening. What an epiphany. I guess Mr. Putnam will now be running on the pro-choice ticket, but this will likely get him kicked out of the conservative club.

I will share more later.

Just a side note:

There is a very good Independent running against this Adam "Opie" Putnam. He is using a Howdy Doody puppet to talk for Putnam while he is campaigning. This guys name is Joe Viscusi, and I am so glad to see him using the Howdy Doody theme...cause Opie surely is a Howdy Doody type. Our paper makes clear that he is not the Howdy Doody referred to in Congress....but they say the name stuck.

Here is Adam Putnam. He is one of the top evildoers in the GOP leadership ladder. He helped get the House oil drilling bill through, and he loves to ramrod bills through.



And here is the website of a guy I really like, taught with his sister long time ago. He is funny, smart, witty. He can't make up his mind if he is Democrat, Republican, or whatever....but then there is no Democrat running against Putnam. I like Joe. He served in the state legislature, has experience. Outspoken. He spoke to our DFA group and was well-received.

http://www.joeviscusi.com/

[madfloridian]

1. And a letter on how Bush is keeping us from taking human life...stem cells

This one is just as good as the one above. We sure do have some writers with lots of razor sharp wit. This person sure has the number of the right wing zealots.

The Real Reason

It's a good thing religion exists, otherwise some people wouldn't know that morality exists.

That President Bush is too clever for us. He saw right through all our talk about Parkinson's Disease, Alzheimer's, paralysis, diabetes and all those other fronts we threw up to confuse the "good" and the "righteous." But we didn't fool him.

Like God's candle illuminating the dark hearts of the wicked, he knew exactly what we were after and he showed the world.

We'll have to find another way to take innocent human life. Back to the drawing board.

[Freedom_Aflaim]

2. huh? I must be missing something

Did his wife abort #5 or something?

I read this a couple times and Im trying to figure out how having 4 kids makes you pro-choice (or anti-choice for that matter)

Im sure there are a great number of parents that have 4 kids and are pro-choice.

[madfloridian]

6. It's sort of sarcastic, because he is rabidly anti-abortion and anti-gay

The guy was being sarcastic, saying Putnam wanted to intrude on our lives but wanted privacy in his.

[madfloridian]

8. Or maybe hypocritical is a better word.

As in I want my privacy, but you can't have yours.

[Nikki Stone 1]

9. The Opie pro-lifer said that family size was a personal choice

This is exactly the pro-choice position.

[madfloridian]

10. But he doesn't want others to have the choice. Lots of irony there.

And hypocrisy.

[Nikki Stone 1]

17. Absolutely

It's amazing how people have convictions and beliefs for everyone else but themselves.

[The Straight Story]

3. I am pro-life personally but I don't want to enforce my beliefs on others

That to me goes to the core of christianity as I learned it - Jesus sent his disciples out to preach the good news to others and convert their hearts/minds - not force them to act/believe via politics/laws.

Be in the world, not of it.

I have several tiers of things as I see it: Personal, church, local, federal. The first two deal with voluntary issues (ie, you choose to live that way) the last two deal with a broader scope of people and more diverse and should be seperate from the first two.

[MADem]

12. That's pro=choice, the way I see it

You choose to regard the embryo as viable from conception, but you respect the choice of others to not agree with your assessment.

And anyone with a reverse point of view should accord you equal respect for your viewpoint. While the government, hopefully, stays out of it entirely.

[John Q. Citizen]

4. The Rep. is saying my business is my business and

your business is my business.

Same ol' same ol'

[madfloridian]

7. Exactly. You put it well.

And that is how he feels. He wants to control women and gays, but he wants us out of his private choices.

[madfloridian]

5. Another blasting Bush on stem cell research veto.

President Bush, It's Time to Put Science Before Ideology

Why is it OK to kill and maim innocent men, women and children in wars, but it is not OK to use embryos to possibly help someone no longer shake and tremble from Parkinson's disease, or cure diseases such as Lou Gehrig's, spinal cord injuries, diabetes, osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases and cancer?

President Bush has approved handouts to oil companies and multimillionaires, but he vetoed legislation to help millions of Americans get medical care.

The bill Bush vetoed called for using the more than 400,000 surplus embryos stored at fertility clinics that will never be used to create a pregnancy and will otherwise be thrown away. Just as important, this legislation would have ensured that stem cell research would have been conducted under ethical guidelines that are stricter than the president's current policy.

Unfortunately, in the Bush White House and the Republican Congress, radical-right-wing ideology trumps the wishes of the American people. Republicans let stem cell legislation wait in the Senate for a year. Now, because of Democrats' persistence, Congress has passed it. It is time for a new direction in America, where sound science comes before ideology, and America's future comes before Republicans' own political futures.

[Warren DeMontague]

11. I like the politician- South Carolina, I think- who said abortion was an

issue that should be decided "as locally as possible".

Yeah, it should, you fucking ginkus. What's more local than a woman's own body and uterus?

[hedda_foil]

13. kick

[Solly Mack]

14. It always amazes me that some people who are Pro-Choice

don't seem to realize they are pro-choice( or more accurately, refuse to be honest about it and call it what it is). And if you understand that reproductuve matters are a private issue and the number of children you have, or don't have, is nobody else's business, then you are Pro-Choice. If you're "Pro-life" but would never impose your personal belief on others, then you're Pro-Choice.

If, however, you recognize that to reproduce or not reproduce is a private matter but still insist on making that determinination for others, then you're a big old hypocrite. Nothing but a hypocrite.

Putnam is a big old hypocrite. Someone who thinks his own life choices are not up for public consumption and debate but still wants to have the final say in the choices of others.

[Cha]

15. Thanks, I enjoyed watching

Joe Viscusi on the "Democracy" show.

Pretty visual with the puppets! Bet adam was seething from the truth!

[Donald Ian Rankin]

16. I don't think this is logical.

While I agree that abortion should be a legal right, I don't think there's anything *hypocritical* about thinking that the decision to have a child should be a matter of personal choice but the decision to have an abortion shouldn't be.

The only logic by which it could be would be if it had to be the case that either all decisions involving ones family were none of the state's business, or none were (in which case infanticide would be a right).

He's wrong, but he isn't - in this instance - hypocritical.