"I Have Every Right To Be An Utter Tool!"

I haven't said anything about the Komen Foundation shitstorm here because, so far, bloggers across the pond - and with profiles I am both envious of and scared to imagine - have entirely got it covered. In brief, for those that haven't come across this story: the Komen Foundation. a charity for breast cancer, reached critical mass regarding how many conservatives were on their executive board, and all of a sudden, they decided to stop funding Planned Parenthood, an organisation which helps the very poor with access to cancer detection, but also helps the very poor with access to abortion.

Unsurprisingly, this led to a massive outcry from an awful lot of people who kind of assumed when they gave their money to a breast cancer charity that said charity wouldn't pull funding from organisations who are fighting breast cancer, and wouldn't do so with so little warning that the move could plausibly have a body count attached to it.  The original reason for pulling the funding made no sense, a couple of days of coming up with increasingly implausible alternative excuses didn't make any sense either, and the Foundation have reversed their decision, though in a fairly weaselly way that can best be summarised as "We reserve the right to be intolerable fuckers in the near future, so don't get comfortable".

Much of the progressive blogohedron in America is delighted, because as they see it the vicious, callous Republicans (the woman directly responsible for this decision once ran as a GOP candidate, so the label applies) had finally managed what was increasingly seeming impossible: pull something so despicable public opinion would pound them into the ground.

Of course, not everyone is happy with this turn of events: 

[Y]ou’re on notice: If you currently donate to PP, you may never stop doing so... In the NROHQ kitchen just now, Charlie Cooke wondered aloud, and here I paraphrase: “Does anyone on the Left even ask the basic question of whether a private charitable organization has the right to dispose of its money as it sees fit?” But in fact, that anyone thinks there is a question here is a sign we’ve already lost. (h/t to LGM for providing the above link).

It's been pointed out by others how breathtakingly hypocritical this whining is, given that the same publication was just days earlier celebrating how conservatives had managed to shout and scream enough to cause Komen to drop PP funding in the first place. I'd also note that PP provides women with vouchers that allow mammograms etc. to be performed elsewhere for cheap/for free, which means that saying the organisation "does not provide mammography" is about the same as saying that my insurance company does not provide a new TV after the last one gets nicked.

What I really wanted to mention, however, is that this is another example of a conservative trick we've discussed before.  Alas, I still don't have a snappy title for it, but it goes like this: if liberals hate something, argue it isn't illegal.  If conservatives hate something, argue it should be illegal.  Even if the NRO hadn't just finished arguing that brow-beating a company into doing their bidding isn't awesome, the argument that the Komen Foundation had the right to be cowardly gitchimps is entirely beside the point.  The people excoriating them have the right to complain.  They have the right to stop paying the Komen Foundation money.  They have the right to call for and organise a boycott (interesting how all that "free market" bullshit suddenly disappears the instant a company actually responds to consumer pressure from liberals, huh?)

And, of course (and I can't believe I have to point this out, but some people are very, very stupid) Maloy has the right to object to all of that, as well.  Then I have the right to determine his objections as coming from a disingenuous idiot who no-one should ever have shown how to access the internet.  This sort of dispute is, one would hope, supposed to be settled, or at least discussed, using actual arguments.  Stating that no-one has broken the law is the exact opposite of that, an attempt to suggest that argument itself isn't necessary, that until Congress makes it illegal for companies to do what they want with their money, no-one should criticise a company for what they do with their money.

Of course, were Congress ever to pass such a law, it would be ludicrous to expect Maloya and his NRO cronies would shut up.  And you know how I know?  Because Congress did pass a law saying organisations have the right to provide abortion services, and those turdwelders couldn't fall over themselves fast enough to congratulate KF for refusing to put up with it.

Refusing to give money to an organisation because they're not conservative enough: the right of a company.  Refusing to give money to an organisation for being too conservative: "left-wing gangsterism".  One side wants the things they dislike to be banned.  The other recognises the importance in keeping the things they dislike legal, but will call it bullshit all the same.

Remind me which party harps on about small government and the protection of freedom?