Friday, September 27, 2013

You Are What You Eat, King.

Guys, guys, come look! There's a catfight!

It's cute, really. Two politicians no one really wants to listen to both making a fuss about more things people don't really want to listen to. They think we care, bless their little hearts. If you read my post earlier, you already know that Ted Cruz needs to shut the heck up. But I'm adding a new name to the list of people who need to get over themselves: Peter King. 

Maybe mommy never loved him and that's why he needs so much attention. Recently King has come out trashing Ted Cruz and his followers saying that they have been plaguing his office with "vile" and "obscene" phone calls.  I'm not sure why he's so offended. After all, we know there is nothing more vile or obscene than what goes on behind a politician's closed doors.  But King justifies his little hissy fit with an even BETTER reason: 

""I have young women, women interns, full-timers, in their late teens, early 20s, and they get these phone calls."

What?! Heaven forbid the legal-age probably not virgin women hear some obscene words! Someone save their pre-suffrage era and unequal little souls! They are much to fragile to be hearing such things! Hearing insults and inappropriate language is NEVER part of taking a job working for the government! Oh Lord! 

Once again, Shut up. 

And also, I'm not a "WOMAN'S RIGHTS HEAR MY OVARIES ROAR" feminist,
But don't insult women who KNOWINGLY took this job knowing it might not always be rainbows by using them as an excuse and an attack against a Senator that everyone is already bored of talking about anyway. K thanks. 

5 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

While Rachel I do appreciate your enthusiasm, I'm no so sure that no one wants to listen to them. I mean this has been receiving a heavy amount of news coverage, more than I've seen at least for other recent Congressional affairs such as the major food stamp bill that just passed in the House (see Connor’s post). Now I could be wrong, but I've heard much more discussion about Cruz than I have about this bill. This could, in fact, indicate simply that the intrigue of Cruz and King is what people care about more than the substance of debate, but I also suspect that people are "tuning in" or following the story because the topic of the content is important to them. (It’s like the importance of gauging passion on a subject when polling.)

This is not to say that all those who could tell you about Cruz’s behavior this past week are in agreement with him, but certainly people are listening to him.

I do agree that women who sign up for a job of answering phones for a politician are well aware that they are placing themselves in a position where they very well might receive verbal abuse on any number of topics. These people, not just women, who accept this job are choosing to do so, and I believe, are perfectly capable to handle the job. If that's not your cup of tea, it's not impossible to go find an equivalent job with more civility involved. I'd equate King's statements to those who argue women cannot handle combat. They sign up knowing what they are signing up for, so it's offensive to me to claim women are too delicate to handle the job—and that the dangers aren’t appropriate for women. Ugh.

That being said, this might just be King's method of appeal to quell the hate calls and not his sexist opinions getting revealed. But that's not to say it makes it acceptable. Still, we have bigger fish to fry. Let's turn our attention to the budget fight and focus on that, which is of real substance.

Unknown said...

I have to agree with Kira; Rachel, while I agree with your sentiment that Rep. Peter King and Senator Cruz have overstepped the bounds that should (but rarely do) govern the constant debate of politics, they obviously have many people listening to them. Both Cruz and King seem to be in the spotlight because of their radically opposite views despite being a part of the same party, and people cover their banter to establish their own stance in relation to the polar opposite views of the Republican party. People following the support and attacks on Obamacare bills must take into account the views of King and Cruz, no matter how distasteful they find the bickering.

In regards to the gender inequality touched upon by this article, I think a solid step towards treating men and women as equals would be to quit using their supposed "fragile" and "emotional" qualities as excuses in arguments. In King's case, he only uses the female interns he employs to add to his attack on Cruz. In reality, there are women who would be shaken by these "vile" and "obscene" calls, and women who wouldn't. Likewise, there are also men who would and wouldn't be shaken by these calls.

It would be nice if Senator Cruz and Representative King could argue civilly about the pros and cons of different aspects of Obamacare. Since that is obviously not going to happen, we must allow them to speak their part, then, (as Kira nicely stated) turn our attention to issues of real substance.

Anonymous said...

Kira and Travis - I absolutely agree with you. We may not like knowing that politicians like Cruz are orating for more than 20 hours straight, but we do care and so does the media. The most recent issue of TIME has a spread dedicated to Cruz's antics (I literally do not understand how one can speak for 21 hours) and like Kira said, it has been and is gaining a lot of media coverage. Cruz may not have been successful but he has earned name recognition and a wave of newfound support amongst some Republicans, which I think is significant.
Now, in regards to Peter King - I have to agree with Kira that this whole thing is kind of missing the point. In terms of the gender equality point made by Rachel, his comments did irk me because like Travis said, women and men can be equally affected and unaffected. Perhaps this comment is just him trying to prove a point and saying something that has been ingrained in our culture for a very long time. Yet somehow I think he expects us to sympathize more because they're young women. I really think we should be focused on the budget fight instead of a kind of petty fight between two politicians. How I wish politicians could just work together and voice their opinions in an efficient and productive way....then again, that's probably too much to ask.

Unknown said...

I agree with Rachel, King's justification for his outburst doesn't really seem that sound. Given all the things our age group has already been exposed to, I think it's safe to assume that women in their 20s have heard worse. It is unfortunate that so many people are avid followers of Cruz and King, but the fact is they're here to stay. Frankly, I think that these two are merely trying to gain some extra time in the spotlight, and if this is main goal then it's definitely working. However, like Susan said, their argument is a perfect example of why our government is incapable of compromising or making productive decisions. The fact that the two politicians who are having this argument are from the same political party is not exactly encouraging.