**WARNING: This post contains a personal political opinion. This opinion belongs to no one but myself. If you don’t agree, don’t bash.**
I have always been a child at heart. Indeed, that in of itself makes me a walking, talking cliché.
But in all seriousness, even though I have since left childhood behind, I’ve always found myself, at the core, a child advocate. I get angry at how mass media portrays children and teenagers in such unrealistically unintelligent light. I deem people who dismiss youth and children as ‘not important’ to be brainless jerks. And when a child’s mental well being is threatened, especially for the sake of some adult’s petty whim, I get so enraged I could possibly be considered a threat to society…at least adult society.
So, naturally, when I heard the news this weekend that some obscure Presidential candidate has purchased Super Bowl ad time in order to air graphic, gory, and upsetting images of dead fetuses (fetii?) in order to convey his pro-life stance…I wrote another name down on my list of people to maim before I die.
The Super Bowl (of which my beloved Giants are playing in this year thanks to one of my many husbands, Eli Manning) is one of the biggest televised events of the year. It is a staple of American sports, and a tradition that has only surged in popularity as time has gone on. It is also a rare time where young children can participate in the festivities just as actively as adults. I remember being allowed to stay up late in order to watch my father’s Ravens win in 2000 and thinking I was in heaven.
So someone who has a heart of pure granite decided to air their political agenda in the form of disgusting photos of aborted embryos and fetuses during a time where millions of children and youths will be watching…and probably high on sugar-laiden snacks (because who eats vegetables during the Super Bowl?). The result, undoubtedly, will not result in converted voters so much as a surge in demand for child therapists.
The numb-nut mastermind’s name is Randall Terry, and he is a Democrat who has about as many brain cells as an earthworm (my apologies to earthworms everywhere). He is attempting to boot Obama out of the Presidential race (even though, you know, he’s already President and all). His main issue is abortion. As a pro-lifer, his only claim to political notoriety at all is that he is particularly fond of airing anti-abortion ads that have more blood and dead things in it than a Quentin Tarantino movie (with about a tenth of the substance).
It’s one thing to shamelessly spend millions of dollars for a thirty-second ad attempting to push your political agenda on the masses during a sports game (cough cough TEBOW cough). To do so without even thinking that perhaps some children might be affected in a negative way is nothing short of condemnable.
I notice that when your views are opposite of what the government has in practice, that’s when you’re much more crazy in expressing those beliefs. Politically active pro-lifers are among the people I fear most in the world. These are the people who believe murdering ‘abortion doctors’ and blowing up clinics is legally justifiable. These are the people who believe old rich men should have the rights to womens’ bodies, and that if a woman makes a choice for herself, she should be prosecuted for it. These are the people who place the political rights of a being who’s status as being alive is highly debatable about the political rights of living, breathing, tax-paying, intelligent (sometimes) humans.
And these are the people who believe it is perfectly alright to air gory depictions of dead unborn babies during a time where kids will be watching and highly impressionable, as long as their message is loud and clear.
Every time a child gets corrupted, Eli Manning gets closer to destroying you.
The desperation groups go to these days is intolerable. I think, pro-choice, pro-life, or pro-Patriots, you cannot justify doing such a disgusting thing in order to show that you believe something. It gives me a headache just thinking about such extremists and how they are allowed to do this in the first place. Does CBS have no standards? Did the fact that Randall Terry was able to wave several million dollars in front of their face blind them to the severe breech of ethics involved?
I weep. I weep for the children who are going to see the ad in two weeks. I weep for media’s decline in ethic standards. I weep for self-righteous psychos like Randall Terry.
I just hope to high heaven that CBS has the intelligence to not only place a blunt warning pre-ad that the commercial is disturbing and graphic, but to strategically place the ad so that child viewership might be a bit lower (either at the very beginning before the game gets interesting or at the end when the sugar highs have worn off and 3/4ths of the kids are asleep).
At the end of the day, I just wish people could accept other people’s opinions, and keep the political discourse for the debates on MSNBC.
Of Tornadoes and the Titanic 