people without children can make the hard decisions, people without religion can make hard decisions, tough but fair for everyone.

This is a bit inane, isn’t it? Childfree people are the best at making hard decisions because they won’t be swayed by the possibility that their children might die in a war they have to vote on? I think we both know that being able to make fair decisions has nothing to do with having or not having children or religion. It has to do with being able to look at the impact on all people of a given decision and with having the *will* to make fair decisions, and with being willing to risk one’s own security and money and safety for a greater good.

Having said that, when people don’t have a personal stake in legislation that will hurt someone - when they themselves won’t be hurt but others will be - I’m not convinced that they make the best decisions. That cuts across childed/childfree.

some laws are uncomfortable for those with kids like sending them to war, i have heard parents say that fathers of kids shouldnt be sent to war, so only the single childfree male should be sent to die. IN fact they have more need to fight for thier children, should women be sent to war.. yes if they want too go to war.

you cannot and should not have one rule for one group, and another rule for another. people without children can make the hard decisions, people without religion can make hard decisions, tough but fair for everyone. thats what a politician should be. and the cf can make the hard decisions at least in regards to rules about families..

I actually don’t see it as an attack. I think the larger point is that these decisions about sending troops into war have, so far, only affected one Congressperson directly (that I’m aware of) - my own Senator, Tim Johnson. No one else in Congress has a kid who is/was in service in this war. And given their ages, it’s unlikely they have ANY immediate family members who serve.

And that may well be why they don’t give a damn about what happens to the people they send into harm’s way - there is no personal connection. And this is Boxer’s point, I think - that if they were making decisions about their own family members rather than other people’s, they’d make different decisions. That was certainly one of Michael Moore’s main points in Fahrenheit 9/11, and his was not an attack on childfree people, either.

I am suspicious of the Post’s reporting as well as of the right-wing’s response - this is likely about making Dems look bad and nothing else. I mean, it IS the Post, after all…