Wingers Miss the Point Again

I used to think folks really weren't this clueless, that they were just pretending to be -- like when the Republicans sent out that ad, previous to the election, claiming that if Kerry won, ee-ee-eevil liberals would make gay marriage mandatory and ban the Bible. I figured no one would be stupid enough to actually believe that; that Republicans obviously were just pretending to think that was true, to try to fool idiots (they assumed) lived in trailer parks or hills or something -- the idea that the Hummer-driver Rethugs had of the ill-educated lower-class.

But have a look at this:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/023628.html

Cause maybe I was wrong.

BrothersJudd throws out an obvious strawman argument --

First they quote from the article:

"The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the US government over its funding of a nationwide sexual abstinence programme.

The ACLU says the Silver Ring Thing programme violates the principle that the state budget cannot be used to promote religion. "

Then they attach this bit of misdirection:

Because, after all, if kids aren't having sex then none of us are free.

Right -- because that's why the ACLU is filing suit -- so that kids can have sex.

I don't believe for a minute that the Brothers Judd believe this -- or I didn't. I figured they were just tossing out a snotty strawman argument, that they actually knew all along that the real problem with the Silver Ring and other abstinence programs were that they violate the separation clause (The Silver Ring programme, for instance, distributes Christian bibles in public schools), and were just pretending to be clueless.

But go to the link. Read the comments by Judds' readers. I'm thinking I've been giving the Christian Right wa-ay too much credit.

Children As Score Cards

I read this post a couple of times, trying to decide what, precisely about it bothered me.

http://www.iwf.org/inkwell/default.asp?archiveID=1309

I knew it reminded me of that obnoxious Brooks NYTimes column a few months back, the one about "natalists," when he got all drum-bangy about our-guys-have-more-babies-than-your-guys, nyah-nyah; and I knew it reminded me of that perfectly dreadful Scott Card short story in one of his recent books, where he has Ender's ever-so-brilliant daddy (it's too bad Card isn't brilliant enough to pull off writing a brilliant character, but never mind that for now) pontificate about how societies that have chosen to use birth control, in which women are only having one or two babies each, have obviously "decided to die"; but all this was just the surface stuff: standard nonsense.

No, this, I realize, is at the core of what's getting to me:

"Onto the landscape of Manhattan, a new and lethal status symbol has alighted—and it’s causing the J.A.P.’s and WASP’s of the Upper East Side to quiver with envy....Yes, I’m talking about THE THIRD CHILD.... That critical third child—quite possibly the status symbol of this decade—will get you more Park Avenue cred than a fleet of Bentleys."

(SNIP)

If Doonan is right, I’m glad to see that the blue-state elite, with its notorious ultra-low fertility rate, might be waking up to the fact that it’s gradually losing the demographic war to red-staters and their tendencies to have large families. Instead of wondering "what’s the matter" with the red-staters, the blue-staters are getting off their duffs and fighting back. That’s healthy.

That's sick.

Not the having of third children -- heavens no. Being firmly and perhaps even insanely pro-choice*, I am all for folks having precisely as many kids as they do or don't want. Have one. I did. Have two. Have three. Have eleven, if your heart desires, though I must admit I will gape in astonishment as I pass you in Wal-Mart and wonder what in Sam Hill you coulda been thinking -- but hey. It's your life, I will say, and shrug, and keep going.

So it's not the having of the third baby, even in NYC, I find appalling here.

It's the IWF getting all chirpy over this third child as some sort of political gambit -- on either side -- thinking, as Brooksie was thinking, as Scott Card was thinking -- that people should have, or do have, or ought to have, children to score political points.

This works my humanist nerves.

Children aren't ways of keeping score. They aren't ways to show up your enemy.

Really not.

They're human beings. If people aren't perpared to think of the humans they are bringing into the world as humans, with their own wills and rights, and not as tools to further some political or religious or cultural agenda of their parents (or some mythic creators), well, I'm thinking those people should maybe raise poodles instead.

Or, hey, write blogs.

I'm just saying.


*An example: The kid is seven now, but I've been teaching her that her body is her body since day one. All the standard ways. No one gets to kiss her, not even me or mr. delagar, unless she wants a kiss; she gets to wear the clothes she wants to wear; when she asks me whether she can get a tattoo when she grows up, I give her the little liberal parent lecture ("Well, the Torah says this about tattoos, but we interpret it this way, so it's probably okay in a religious sense, on the other hand people will think blar blar blar, but it's up to you because as you know it's your body and you can do as you like with your own body." and all the while you must picture mr. delagar who so does not want his child getting a tattoo or a belly button ring or a tongue stud EVER sitting there with his eyes squinched like this saying in his head o please can't we just tell her NO?).

Anyway. A few weeks ago I came into the front room and she's sitting in the white chair and there's a pile of hair on the floor next to her -- her hair -- and she's snipping her new scissors dreamily. "AAAARGH!" I howled. "WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"Well, Mama," she said, very calm and cozy and certain of herself. "It's my body."

Which of course it is.

So I had to let it go.

"Interesting haircut," I said, only slightly strangled, and went on into the kitchen.

Better or Worse?

From Emma Jane, over at Barely Tenured:

http://maplestreet.blogs.com/

Compared with your parents when they were the age you are now, is your standard of living now much better, somewhat better, somewhat worse, of much worse?

This is a no-brainer for mr. delagar and me. Even though we're doing 300% better now than we were a year ago (amazing what declaring bankruptcy will do for you), our standard of living is still pretty sucky. We rent a house on the very edge of an acceptable neighborhood, both of our cars, while they are paid for, are ancient pieces of junk, we own nothing of value, if you don't count a bazillion books (and you'll be interested to know that the bankruptcy court did not -- if we had had boats, or motorcycles, or ATVS, or goats, all of that would have been stuff they would have seized -- but books? Nope. Useless junk, books.).

mr. delagar, as a graduate student with three different ill-paying jobs, though he makes enough to be above the poverty level, as it is defined by our charming government, does not make near what his father made at this age -- a subject which is a sore trial to him. ( I point out that his father was not also being the primary caretaker for a child. This does not cheer mr. delagar up. It ought to, in my opinion.)

I made more than my mother did when she was my age -- she worked for the New Orleans public school system -- but since I'm the primary wage earner we ought to be comparing me to my father, I guess, and no, not near what he was making at my age.

When my parents were my age, they owned a four bedroom house; they could afford summer vacations; they could afford to send my younger brother to private school. They could raise four kids and plan to send them all to universities. They could plan for a fairly luxurious retirement. My mother was working, but she had just spent our childhood at home with us, and my father, after that, had sent her to back to school, to get her B.A. He could afford to do that.

I guess our situations are somewhat similar -- mr. delagar is back in school, he's staying home with the kid, we've got her in private school -- but it's one kid, not four, there won't be a luxurious retirement (we joke that we just won't ever retire, because we're certainly not managing to save much for it), mr. delagar is working all the while he's in school, he worked the whole time he "stayed home" with the kid (we scheduled his work hours around mine, and put her in daycare or preschool part time), not to mention the state, not we ourselves, is paying for his education.

And not to mention the anxiety. I don't know if my parents felt this. Maybe they did. We always know that my job can vanish. (It's non-tenured. This university doesn't have tenure. I'm on a two-year renewable contract. I don't expect it to vanish, but still.) Life in 2005 is so uncertain. Even if your job doesn't go away, there's the health care crisis (despite the denials of the Wingers, it exists): if you get sick, your financial situation will be destroyed. And everyone knows this, on some level. Gasoline prices, ditto. The War. The religious whacks. Global warming. One thing after another, not to mention what's up with the growing rift between the hideously wealthy and the desperately poor. Yeah, the anxiety is the worst of all.

But I'm sure our parents had anxiety too.

Right?

Yep. You Bet.

His 14 year old son gets in trouble at school.

He beats him with a belt so viciously that the kid requires a trip to the ER.

He claims this is "proper discipline."

The state is trying to decide whether or not to charge him with assault.

I'm trying to decide what century we live in.

Malone said what happened was a "parental intervention" after his son had a discipline problem at school.

"Our children cannot be expected to act in a disrespectful way to teachers and other individuals in positions of authority," he said in a prepared statement. "Proper discipline is an important and necessary component of good parenting."

(Via DED Space:
http://dedspace.blogspot.com/2005/05/and-still-on-subject-of-lite-crime.html)

Christian Nation? You Decide

Here's a prime example of why I should be a fry cook:

So far no less than three of my World Lit students have, on their final exams, defined parable as "a short story with animal characters, with some moral point, usually found in the New Testament."

And before you ask, no, these are not furrin students.

These are straight-up white-bread American children.

And that sound you hear? That is indeed me banging my head against the wall.

That Time of Year

Finals being over, grading season is upon us. So posting will be light for the next bit.

Not to mention, it's a discouraging time of the semester. How much I did not teach them gets made so appallingly clear. This is always when I think what an excellent fry cook I might have made...

Worldview

Heh. No surprise here -- I'm a post-modernist.

http://quizfarm.com/results.php

My score for fundamentalism was 0% though. That makes me very happy.

(Via Geeky Mom: http://geekymom.blogspot.com/)

Being A Good Christian Girl...

This is more on that whole obedience thing, because just when I think I have been as horrified as I can be by the Levitican/Christian's insane notions on obedience, well.

This via Pandagon, and it's a Good Christian girl explaining something Milton had already explained, back in the 17th century: how when a woman obeys her man, or in this case her daddy, she is actually obeying God.

The order of God, as indicated in his word, is that God himself defers to the will of the father when it comes to his daughter. God says, "You heard your father. The answer is no." Thus, the will of the father regarding his daughter IS the will of God.

http://www.bibletopics.com/biblestudy/92b.htm

Emphasis is in the original, btw.

The whole thing is a lengthy essay about how "godly" girls know that they belong to "daddy" and have no desire for anything nasty like independence or making their own decisions, on the men they will marry or anything else. (On the careers they will have? Well, silly! They won't have careers! Good daddies raise their girls to be supported by their men, and good girls want to be supported, of course! Good girls know they should be dependent all their lives! Good girls just sit and wait for their daddies to find them new daddies to belong to, of course.)

Or, to quote our little Biblical scholar:


I am owned by my father. If someone is interested in me, he should see him....it is not to be wondered at that our generation speaks only of women's rights and children's rights, whereas the Scripture speaks of God's rights and parents' rights.

Can I simply say, as an actual scholar of the Bible, that this is such a misreading of the text, that it makes me physically ill?

Parents do not own their children. Parents are responsible for the care of their children, for the education of their children, for protecting their children. But parents do not own the souls of their children.

And parents certainly do not stand in the relationship of God to their children. This is blasphemy. This violates the first commandment. To teach a child something like this is, in fact, to mislead -- to miseducate -- that child.

With obvious bad results and obvious risks that I'm sure I don't have to lay out for you folk here.

Put Down That Plato

Here's another guy with some of Dennis Prager's moral values.

He thinks everything is very simple.

Guys he agrees with are good. They should go to heaven, and make lots of money, and get candy.

Guys he doesn't agree with are eee-eee-eeevil. They should be killed. He doesn't really care how.

See?

And you thought figuring out moral issues was tough.

http://christianconservative.blogspot.com/2005/05/complicated-problems-simple-solutions.html

(Some of the comments are good ones though. You might read those.)

Update on Sowell's Silly Column

Remember Sowell's question about how the worker at Wal-Mart could be living on what Wal-Mart paid if Wal-Mart wasn't paying a living wage?

Here you go, Mr. Sowell:

Estimated total federal assistance for which Wal-Mart employees were eligible last year: $2,500,000,000[Democratic Staff of the Committee on Education and the Workforce (Washington)]

http://www.harpers.org/HarpersIndex2005-03.html

Well, okay then

Ask, and you do receive.

They took Hagar down.

http://www.feminist.org/news/newsbyte/uswirestory.asp

More Hagar

If we had any sort of a sane government, something would be shaking over Hagar.

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2005/05/outrage.html

But no. It's only women complaining, and Democrats.

So long as the Levitican Christians are happy, Bushco is all "La-La-La I can't hear you."

I'll tell you the part that scares me the most about Hagar's little sermon, though -- and the part that ought to scare you, if you're a woman, or you're married to one, or you have a daughter, or a sister -- it's the part where he says Satan is behind Plan B.

Satan is behind Plan B, says Hagar.

Plan B is nothing but emergency birth control.

All Plan B does is keep what might be a fertilized egg -- might be -- from implanting. (There might not be any fertilized egg at all, of course. This is the Schrodinger's Cat of birth control.)

That's all regular birth control does. That's all the pill does, that millions of woman take every day. That's all the Depo shot does. That's all Noroplant does, and the patch does.

Satan's behind those, too?

Hagar seems to suggest so.

What, then, does Hagar's version of God want women to do, might one surmise?

If Hagar were in charge of women's health --

See, here's where it stops being funny.

Hagar, thanks to Bush, is in charge of women's health in this country.

Heh

Over theah in Kentucky the state police done arrested a fella for riding his horse drunk.

On off duty state trooper called dispatchers after he got behind Millard Dwyer, and his horse Prince, on Bourne Avenue.

The officer says he followed Dwyer to the intersection of Borne and Race Street. A Somerset Police officer then arrested Dwyer, after police say his breath test was three-times over the legal limit.

http://www.wkyt.com/Global/story.asp?S=3332484

Can you feature that?

However, the officer says he was justified, despite Dwyer's protests, since a horse is a vehicle, under state law.

When I was a young MFA student, up in Fayetteville, I knew a girl who got a DUI for riding her bicycle drunk. Much the same argument got made.

Of course, in Fayetteville, they would arrest young MFA students for walking around drunk. It was called Public Intox. And, frankly, who could blame them? We were a mighty obnoxious bunch.

I mean, not me personally. I would never have behaved in such a fashion. Laws, no.

I speak of other MFA students. That's right.

Good Lord

Here's another stupid one -- though calling Ben Shapiro stupid is sort of like calling water wet.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/benshapiro/bs20050511.shtml


But the thesis to his fine, insightful essay?

It is our lack of moral values, and our inability to feel rage at the misbehavior of others (thanks to too much therapy -- see that Sommers book, One Nation Under Therapy, all the conservatives are salivating over, because it proves, yes, proves, that therapy is a waste of time, thus reinforcing their worldview, which is all you need to do with your troubled kid is whale on him with a belt and take him to church about sixty times a week and he'll be fine, thank you JESUS, where was I? Oh yes --) inability to feel rage, says Ben: that's what led Jerry Hobbs in murder those two little girls, one of them his daughter.

If we'd been condemning people all along for wearing short skirts and wanting gay marriage and not worshipping Capitalism I mean Jesus in the right manner and, you know, generally raging against the Other, the way Jesus wants us to ("Hate your enemy, he says, there in Matthew, do evil to him who harms you, when someone smacks you on the cheek, by God, pound that fucker into the ground!"), well! Things would be very different in this country, that's all.

So get out there and start judging one another, hear me? Lest your little seven year old get killed by her father too!

They Just Get Dumber

This one is rich.

Thomas Sowell, one of the Right's favorite voices, claims that Wal-Mart is, so, paying its employees plenty of money, and anyone who claims otherwise is just a yappy Academic busybody.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/ts20050512.shtml

To support his case -- well, he doesn't, of course, bother to support his case. (Occasionally Sowell, like Coulter, will provide support for some of his lame contentions, but, as with Coulter, when you track down his sources, you find them to be suspect, bogus, or misrepresented.)

Instead of supporting his case, Sowell just trots out Winger cliches.

....sure enough, the New York Times finds a Wal-Mart employee who complains that he is not making "a living wage."

How is he living, if he is not making a living wage?

Oh, ha ha ha.

I think I heard that one first about three years ago, from my right-wing brother, the one who's a Rush Limbaugh fan. I don't know where Rush got it.

Here's how he's living, Mr. Sowell: he's collecting food stamps, he's collecting Welfare(because he's actually probably a she, you know) for his two kids, she's collecting Medicare when those kids get sick, because she can't buy medical insurance on what Wal-Mart pays her-- and who pays all for that, Mr. Sowell?

Oh, yes. I do. And you do. And the rest of America does. We all subsidies Wal-Mart, so that Wal-Mart can continue to underpay its employees, so that Wal-Mart's stockholders -- who might some of them be the retired teachers you sing so sweetly about, but are more of them rich white guys and their wives driving Porsche SUVs and giant yellow Hummers, because I live among them, Mr. Sowell, NW Arkansas is Wal-Mart Central, that's who we're paying giant hunks of our income tax to subsidize, Mr. Sowell, so don't come getting all yappy to me about any social contract and how you didn't sign it.

Let the executives at Wal-Mart cut back just a bit. Pass on some earnings to their employees just a bit. Take some of the burden off the taxpayers of America. Be, in other words, a responsible business.

What, exactly, about that offends you, sir?