At Daily Kos, a fairly well-known clearinghouse for the Left, a blogger named OllieGarkey has taken note of our efforts and "operations", and found us of sufficient interest that they decided to raise the question today whether our distinctive symbol evokes the neo-Nazi Wolfsangel.
(Source of image: OllieGarkey at Daily Kos. Originally found here.)
(Source of image: OllieGarkey at Daily Kos. Originally found here.)
While I have a bit of sympathy for someone's spotting a seeming similarity between our chosen visual aid and the Wolfsangel, or even a swastika, I am glad to take this opportunity to state in no uncertain terms that we officially and unofficially, categorically detest all the distinctives of Nazism, including but not limited to racism, anti-Semitism, inclination toward mass murder, and megalomaniacal lust for power.
We are servants of the Lord Jesus Christ and are comprised of people of all ethnicities, languages, and skin color. Many of us have adopted children of a different ethnicity and skin color and children of "mixed" ethnicity, and we love them all.
We have a bustling Facebook community with numerous admins and, while it is impossible to police every single comment thread, we have often taken the initiative to block unruly professing Christians when their tone has become too harsh, their invective too vitriolic, and their argumentation too personal and too lacking in real substance. The (thankfully few) times posters have posted racist or just plain awful rhetoric, we have swiftly banned them. The reason for this is simple: It is easy for many pro-choice people to see a post on our page from someone who claims to be pro-life and jump to the unwarranted but common conclusion that we endorse what they said and how they said it. Such is not necessarily the case, and we do our best to clean up after the messes less thoughtful pro-lifers and anti-abortion people make.
To his credit, OllieGarkey, the author of this Kos post, took at least some time to peruse our website to find out whether we do host any neo-Nazi sympathies. He of course found no evidence of such. He even links to a discussion of what our symbol means and its purpose and inspiration. I also credit him with not jumping to a bad conclusion in his article. He says:
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that it's not intentional, but as a history buff I nearly sprayed tea all over my screen this morning when I saw an anti-abortion poster which contained a German Wolfsangel. It's a symbol in wide use by neo-nazis today (emphasis mine, not original).
He is correct - it is not at all intentional. It is intentionally striking and unique, however, as noted in our article. I don't know about "fawning over ourselves", but no reasonable person ever accused Daily Kos bloggers of immaculate objectivity.
A few more notes about his article:
I doubt, I very seriously doubt, that there is more to this than the fact that conservatives really suck at history.
Interestingly, the majority of our approach and motivation is derived from history, both 1st-century Middle Eastern and southeastern European history and also 18th- and 19th-century British and American history. Here is just one example. The director of the Society and the designer of the AHA symbol has forgotten more about the history of abolition than OllieGarkey knows. His contempt is a joke.
That's a kind of cryptofascist lie you might find if you went to read white nationalist literature from American Renaissance or Stormfront: The conspiracy theory is that abortion and homosexuality were invented as a way to decrease white births, and thus help destroy "the Caucasian race."
In no way would we ever make such a statement. It is difficult to deny, however, that the flipside of this view is very plausible, with a great deal of historical support.
Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, is rightly well-known for her desire to reduce the "Negro" population through abortion. This practice and aim continue to this day and leftists like The Daily Kos continue to stick their fingers in their ears and ignore the obvious and explicit.
So no, we don't particularly fear an impending destruction of the "Caucasian race". Far nearer is the abortion-driven destruction of African-Americans, with a solid assist from Planned Parenthood, one of the Daily Kos' favorite NGOs.
Let's pause to consider how twisted up this whole scenario is. Two babies are murdered every minute in this country, and this Daily Kos blogger wants to ramble about how our symbol kind of, a little bit, sorta looks like some obscure pagan symbol that has been co-opted by a group that has a big name but virtually never does anything? Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood is targeting minorities for extermination. No big deal.
What's that? You think pro-choice arguments have some merit? Sorry, we haven't yet found one that does.
Even if we did have neo-Nazi sympathies, what would that matter? The fundamental issue at hand is that babies are being murdered, the future of our country is being eroded, and our country is spitting in God's face every minute that we allow this gross violation of human rights and the image of God in humanity. Where is the Daily Kos' independent thought now? OllieGarkey is merely one in a long line of drones who have bought the leftist lies and embraced the apathy. Hey, they're not his kin; why should he care about their future and their voice?
Just look at the way he ignores, sidesteps the original poster's argument, in favor of calling attention to the symbol. You know, we make the posters for several reasons, and one of them is to show that abortion is evil and must be considered such by reasonable people. He could have spilled his ink interacting with our argumentation in a rational manner...but no. Instead, it's neo-Nazi Wolfsangel and foolish mockery, using words (like "crypto-fascist") he probably doesn't understand and which most certainly have no application to us.
OllieGarkey continues:
I don't see anything overtly racist in what they're writing other than the idea that women having access to birth control is just as bad as slavery (emphasis original).
Now wait just a minute.
Does OllieGarkey really mean to contend that abortion is morally equivalent to birth control? Is he familiar with the difference between contragestion and contraception?
Where has he engaged the extensive argumentation in favor of the abolitionist position that human life begins at conception? Is he unfamiliar with the explicit abolitionist position that God is the One Who has the prerogative to give and take life, and that only under very particular circumstances has He delegated that to humans? And that dismembering tiny babies or attacking them with chemical and pharmaceutical weaponry isn't one of those circumstances?
As a matter of fact, we have made the argument very clearly that, while women having access to birth control is certainly not equivalent to slavery, society allowing the powerful to oppress and kill the weakest and most voiceless through abortion is very similar to society's having allowed the powerful to oppress and abuse the weakest and most voiceless through slavery.
The distinction may not be clear to someone seeking fodder for a hatchet job, but we believe it is available for the reasonable reader.
Finally, he accuses us of being "anti-choice".
One wonders whether he would say the same thing to an abolitionist of human slavery, that he would not grant that there really exists a plantation owner's right to own Negroes to work his cotton fields?
It’s always self-defeating to impose your own morals on others by telling them not to impose their own morals on others. The thing is, the state “denies” our "choice" to do or not do all sorts of things, such as:
--not rape, even if someone really really wants to
--drive at or under the speed limit
--refrain from firebombing legal places of business
--pay taxes
etc.
Unless OllieGarkey is a consistent and total anarchist, he doesn't have a problem with being "anti-choice" in some cases. The question is not whether morality will be imposed, but which morality will be imposed. He would do well to argue for his views that his moral view is better, not merely dismiss them.
I'm probably wrong. I hope I'm wrong (emphasis original).
He is not wrong where he thought. Sadly, he is wrong in most of the other important spots.
(Please leave any comments at Abolish Human Abortion.)
(Please leave any comments at Abolish Human Abortion.)
