"Punishment"

The John Edwards campaign is off to a great start. He has hired leftist lunatic Amanda Marcotte to run his official campaign blog. Now if you're anything like me, your first reaction will be either (a) I wish the Simpsons were still funny, or (b) Amanda who?

Pablo at Protein Wisdom has done the world a favor by writing a post that answers question (b) pretty well, although it doesn't even touch question (a). It's an interesting post, in that it mostly features her blog posts that, now that she's a paid Edwards staffer, have an odd habit of disappearing (Dan Riehl also has a bunch of her "disappeared" posts).

Among her claims to fame is her statement that she refuses to be "punished by babies." That's an interesting remark, especially in light of the fact that her new boss' wife has been "punished" with five children.

It reminds me of an interesting argument made by pro-abortion Supreme Court justices. In Carey v. Population Serv., Int'l, 431 U.S. 678 (1977), Justice Brennan wrote that "It would be plainly unreasonable to assume that (the State) has prescribed pregnancy and the birth of an unwanted child (or the physical and psychological dangers of an abortion) as punishment for fornication."

I suppose that would be an odd sort of punishment. The question I have for Mr. Brennan, though, is what criminal act warrants punishment by having a needle stabbed into your skull so your brains can be sucked out by a surgical vacuum?