America’s recent pull-out from Afghanistan was a rare moment of bipartisan agreement for the country. This didn’t stop some Democrats from using the resulting crisis in Afghanistan to demonize their political opponents. Last month, MSNBC published an op-ed by columnist Dean Obeidallah comparing the GOP to the Taliban on the issue of women’s rights. Citing the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2021 (VAWA), the Paycheck Fairness Act, and the Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act, Obeidallah makes the claim that like the Taliban, the GOP seeks to control women and strip them of their fundamental rights on the basis of religion.
However, GOP opposition to VAWA and the Paycheck Fairness Act is not based on a hatred of women, but rather on the considerable faults with each of these bills. VAWA, which was popular on both sides of the aisle when it originally passed in 1994, has since been hijacked by partisan provisions which the Democrats hope to pass using the veil of the bill’s name and its past popularity. One of these provisions grants green cards to illegal immigrants who accuse their partners of abuse. Additionally, the Paycheck Fairness Act is entirely based on the theory of the gender pay gap, which has been debunked numerous times. A 2018 Harvard Study found that the pay gap “can be explained entirely by the fact that, while having the same choice sets in the workplace, women and men make different choices.” Therefore, Republicans’ hesitancy to vote in favor of these bills cannot accurately be attributed to sexism.
The argument that anti-abortion laws, such as the Arkansas Unborn Child Protection Act, are oppressive to women is also flawed. Obeidallah states that “Republicans champion measures to deprive women of freedom over their own bodies.” The issue with this argument is that a woman’s freedom over her body doesn’t extend to the body of her unborn child. Giving birth affects the woman’s body, but this fact doesn’t justify the dismembering and killing of the baby. Anti-abortion laws are not designed to hurt the lives of women, but rather to protect the lives of unborn women and men who have the right to life as it is guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence.
Another comparison drawn by Obeidallah between the GOP and the Taliban is that both are motivated by their respective religions. Like the Taliban, Obeidallah states, the GOP aims “…to impose their religious beliefs on all others.” Here, Obeidallah equates Republicans’ use of religion as a moral guide which sometimes manifests itself in GOP policy to the Taliban’s use of religion as a justification for terror. The Western religions practiced by many Republicans are not remotely similar to that of Islamic terrorists, and the comparison is absurd. In the case of anti-abortion laws, for example, Republicans use religion to stop the killing of innocents, while the Taliban uses religion to justify it.
In addition to religion, the policies of the GOP are incomparable to those of the Taliban. As the Taliban prohibits women from walking alone outside, attending school, and reading, the GOP is fighting to protect the rights and safety of all women at home through legislation like the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, signed into law by Florida Governor DeSantis. Contrarily, the left is putting women at risk by advocating the inclusion of men in women’s affairs. This has led to the destruction of women’s sports as well as dangerous situations in women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and prisons.
Articles like Obeidalla’s are part of a greater effort on the left to paint any dissent as a national security threat. Describing his fellow Americans, Malcolm Nance stated on MSNBC’s The Reid Out that “[Republicans] were like ISIS, they were like Al Qaeda in the sense that they radicalized online…which [was] very much like a terrorist insurgency.” Using rhetoric like this, individuals like Nance are attempting to provide an excuse for treating their political enemies at home as they would their adversaries abroad. Stephen Colbert perfectly demonstrated this point last month in a monologue asking, “Why should our soldiers be fighting radicals in a civil war in Afghanistan, when we’ve got our own on capitol hill?”
Tyrannical regimes throughout history have viewed and treated dissent as criminal, leading to the suppression and arrest of dissidents, and the creation of cultures in which people censor themselves out of fear. Increasingly, American culture is becoming one of censorship as cancel culture thrives and tech monopolies use their power to silence individuals with views that challenge the mainstream narrative. American freedom of speech is under attack, and if conservatives want America to remain free, we must speak up now while we still can.
The views expressed in this article are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Lone Conservative staff.
