It doesn't annoy me that people have disparate opinions on issues that matter, or more specifically, that others would find my own personal opinions ill-informed or wrong. The world might well be a boring place if everyone agreed on everything, so you won't find me in the camp of those wishing to eliminate intellectual or ideological diversity.
What does annoy me is when a sizable group of people are willing to suspend intellectual curiosity to the issues that matter, put their fingers in their metaphorical ears, and refuse any modicum of critical thinking when forming and spouting opinions.
It's one of the reasons I join many of my fellow Americans in being appalled at what has happened to America's universities and colleges. Once a bastion of free thought and intellectual inquiry, they have become paralyzed by emotion, fickle feelings, and mindless sloganeering.
And these days, perhaps no singular phrase better encapsulates this intellectual malaise like these four boiler plate words: "My Body, My Choice."
No one actually believes that as a matter of practice. Whether it is mandatory conscription for males in a time of war, or the ever-expanding law codes in all 50 states, if there's one thing our over-governed society wholeheartedly endorses, it is government telling people what they can and can't do with their bodies.
Take the current Democrat presidential ticket that features two smarmy politicians eager to amplify that phrase in pursuit of power. Do they really believe it? You tell me.
The Harris/Walz campaign is still mandating that all its workers get the Covid vaccination.
Their bodies, but apparently not their choice.
Harris went back to this well during her recent interview on the sex podcast "Call Her Daddy." I know that she's receiving just criticism from the Right for talking about tampons on a millennial podcast all while authorities in North Carolina are currently begging for cadaver dogs to help them find dead bodies. No question it's exceedingly tone-deaf and the optics are terrible.
But the content of what she said was just as bad. The vice president attempted another one of her well-worn, pro-abortion rhetorical jabs that she first auditioned in Justice Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings:
I come away from excerpts and clips like that thinking to myself that there really are so many people on the Left who are competent, well-reasoned, and articulate, but Kamala Harris is just not one of them. Pick a law code, any law code from any state in the Union and you'll find a litany of laws affecting the bodies of men.
But beyond that, the fundamental point with regard to abortion laws that regulate "what a woman does with her body," has always been that the child conceived in the womb is not part of the woman's body. This is a separate, distinct, sentient, and living human being that is temporarily housed in the womb of her mother. She has a distinct DNA, a different genotype, a different heartbeat - oftentimes has a varying blood type - and none of those would be possible if she was part of the woman's body.
In reality, to the dispassionate mind, any bodily autonomy argument would demand an end to abortion - the baby's body would mean the baby's choice.
