“Your body belongs to the State. Since your birth the State has nourished it. Now your body must work for the State. Is that understood?”
From Russia With Love – Ian Fleming
Earlier this year Missouri’s Attorney General Andrew Bailey attacked President Joe Biden’s student loan changes because, Bailey claimed, it would deprive the Missouri Higher Education Loan Authority (MOHELA) and thence the state of revenue: the need of the state for money trumped the benefit to students across the nation struggling with debt.
ID, KS and MO AGs in abortion pill lawsuit argue fewer teen pregnancies hurt state financially. [10/24 Missouri Independent and other publications].
From the article…”the attorneys general contend access to Mifepristone has lowered ‘birth rates for teenage mothers’” resulting in less state revenue via taxes paid.
In other words, we exist to support the state and it is the obligation of the state’s lawyer to yank money from as many pockets as possible.
That quote atop this piece? That’s part of a scene where a Soviet espionage official orders a young woman to seduce James Bond, then unknowingly lure him to his death. (The first part goes well.)
So, Missouri’s attorney general is on the same wavelength as a Cold War communist.
Let’s not be surprised.
Missouri’s Republican Party stands at war with itself over which faction most adores Donald Trump, which side stands to slash more flesh and bone off government, and, which group will best control our lives. The irony that the party which long promoted limited government now wants control of every classroom, every medical decision and every thought of is lost on today’s GOP. Note how legislators already talk of overturning the higher minimum wage and sick leave law as soon as the doors open in Jefferson City. Expect book banning bills and the now open push to declare Missouri a Chrisitan State.
Back to Andy: to be consistent the attorney general needs to support not just banning abortion (by pill or surgical intervention) but to limiting or eliminating all access to contraception. That approach has already been given voice by a chunk of Republican legislators. Instead of sex education in schools, well, just pass out old copies of Penthouse to the teenage boys.
Obviously, Missouri wants to outlaw the right to be who you are. The box on your birth certificate determines your future, no changes. Boys must only like girls and girls must like only boys. You must love only who the state tells you to love. Whites stay with whites, blacks with blacks and Missouri will just kick the other shades of people into Illinois and Kansas.
As Ian Fleming wrote and Andrew Bailey insists, “Your body belongs to the State.”
That’s the Missouri way.
Glenn