tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post8964500935029035075..comments2023-12-20T04:18:41.617-06:00Comments on The Hunting of the Snark: The War Against The PoorSusan of Texashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comBlogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-54228069137390888702011-08-26T14:23:38.306-05:002011-08-26T14:23:38.306-05:00"...the handmaiden of illegitimacy, divorce, ..."...the handmaiden of illegitimacy, divorce, ignorance, and addiction." I thought that was Barbara Bush.Dr.BDHnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-87460711349183326782011-08-26T11:32:01.142-05:002011-08-26T11:32:01.142-05:00I think it's these.I think it's <a href="http://www.google.com/imgres?q=horse+blinders&hl=en&sa=X&qscrl=1&nord=1&rlz=1T4GPCK_enUS398US398&tbm=isch&prmd=ivns&tbnid=bdht0pth7HR2HM:&imgrefurl=http://blog.nuancelabs.com/2007/01/16/embrace-your-inner-race-horse/&docid=euq-i2avW1v4lM&w=333&h=360&ei=M8pXTs3LIu6GsALM-o2SDA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=611&vpy=75&dur=3045&hovh=233&hovw=216&tx=123&ty=124&page=1&tbnh=159&tbnw=138&start=0&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0&biw=1334&bih=767" rel="nofollow">these</a>.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-54088404750043606122011-08-26T11:15:22.478-05:002011-08-26T11:15:22.478-05:00"A fanatic is one who will not change his min..."A fanatic is one who will not change his mind and cannot change the subject."<br /><br />I don't know why that sentence keeps popping into my head while browsing these comments, but I'm sure there's some kind of trend.Lurking Canadiannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-61300508716019955842011-08-26T10:54:15.594-05:002011-08-26T10:54:15.594-05:00aspergersaspergersAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-32350416410160675032011-08-26T10:37:51.594-05:002011-08-26T10:37:51.594-05:00Come on, Myles--marriage, motherhood, earning a pa...<i>Come on, Myles--marriage, motherhood, earning a paycheck--those have always been markers of adulthood.</i><br /><br />Well no, ontologically adulthood is independence. You can't, ontologically speaking, reach adult without having independence, no matter the other factors.<br /><br />A girl having a baby at age 15, to be raised by her own parents, is not someone with independence.Mylesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-31880499923185560192011-08-26T10:22:10.927-05:002011-08-26T10:22:10.927-05:00Those are available; why are they not taking/using...Those are available; why are they not taking/using them?<br /><br />Come on, Myles--marriage, motherhood, earning a paycheck--those have always been markers of adulthood.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-10956135415495275272011-08-26T10:15:53.365-05:002011-08-26T10:15:53.365-05:00You don't say what girls (not boys) should be ...<i>You don't say what girls (not boys) should be discouraged from doing. Not using birth control? Not having sex? Not wanting to be loved? Not experiencing physical pleasure like teen boys? Not that I want teens having sex too early or getting pregnant, but oddly enough they all don't listen to me.</i><br /><br />The condom, the pill, etc. I mean seriously, this isn't asking for much.<br /><br /><i>Or they get pregnant because it means adulthood to them, or they have no other future that they can see.</i><br /><br />If you get pregnant because it means adulthood to you, you have no capacity for logical reasoning and you are stupid. "I want" is not a justification for stupidity.Mylesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-1129987543922152072011-08-26T07:58:04.349-05:002011-08-26T07:58:04.349-05:00A girl falls from Grace and commits a sin because ...A girl falls from Grace and commits a sin because we are born sinners. Nine months later, a baby is born.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-65407389107777914702011-08-26T07:30:06.687-05:002011-08-26T07:30:06.687-05:00In the end, I still wonder : How is babby formed?In the end, I still wonder : How is babby formed?Downpuppyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10312490198813632190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-64955765665503329122011-08-26T07:07:38.770-05:002011-08-26T07:07:38.770-05:00We also have to assume that teens will have sex no...We also have to assume that teens will have sex no matter what. What then? And, more important, why is so hard for anyone who is a mother, no matter what the age? Our society substitutes morality for action because morality is cheap and easy and god forbid someone "undeserving" get help. We could make our society easier to survive but we'd rather worship millionaires and kick the poor for the rich's gutting of society.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-76409582213003102882011-08-26T06:54:34.008-05:002011-08-26T06:54:34.008-05:00Setting up one's own place and finding someone...<i>Setting up one's own place and finding someone to love them hardly starts from out-of-wedlock pregnancy while still living with your parents, no? We are confusing means and ends here.</i><br /><br />No. Many children are unloved and neglected and they want those babies. They deliberately take risks or get pregnant. Or they get pregnant because it means adulthood to them, or they have no other future that they can see. They just don't take as much care as a girl with plans and enough money and help to achieve them.<br /><br />You don't say what girls (not boys) should be discouraged from doing. Not using birth control? Not having sex? Not wanting to be loved? Not experiencing physical pleasure like teen boys? Not that I want teens having sex too early or getting pregnant, but oddly enough they all don't listen to me.<br /><br />Do you think boys should be celibate until marriage? Why don't we try harder to discourage them from knocking up girls? Why are they having unprotected sex? What is wrong in their lives?Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-31846973023332270302011-08-25T22:41:47.911-05:002011-08-25T22:41:47.911-05:00Through my experience as teacher, I think a lot of...<i>Through my experience as teacher, I think a lot of girls have a baby because they want something in their lives, someone to love them, money to set up their own place away from their family. Maybe we could do something about that.</i><br /><br />Setting up one's own place and finding someone to love them hardly <i>starts</i> from out-of-wedlock pregnancy while still living with your parents, no? We are confusing means and ends here.<br /><br /><i>Poor parents have poor children at *every age* because poverty keeps people poor. Rich people can have all the kids they want, whenever they want them, without falling in class status.</i><br /><br />Poor people have significantly more children than rich people. I mean, seriously: we can do all the stuff about Marxist class analysis, but in the end it's pretty obvious that if you are poor having children at age 15 is not going to help.<br /><br />I'm pretty queasy about the whole topic, but at the end of the day it should be a pretty uncontroversial public policy objective, for liberals and conservatives alike, to discourage teens mothers. I couldn't care less if a couple produces children in a partnership or in a formal marriage, and other conservative concerns of this nature, but this is something else.Mylesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-61589502496639820492011-08-25T18:40:27.360-05:002011-08-25T18:40:27.360-05:00"For example, we’ve long known that a vast gu..."For example, we’ve long known that a vast gulf exists between single-parent poverty and marital poverty (36.5 percent of female-led single-parent families are poor compared with 6.4 percent of married two-parent families, according to this Heritage study)"<br /><br />That would have nothing to with the fact that a two-parent family (married or not) is prolly bringing in two friggin' incomes now, would it?<br /><br />No, of course not.cynichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02438583188725326668noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-33248710616470022712011-08-25T16:39:56.597-05:002011-08-25T16:39:56.597-05:00Church attendance = magical thinking & beliefs...Church attendance = magical thinking & beliefs.<br /><br />"I won't get pregnant if I pray after sex, go to church regularly, hate "immoral" people ... unless <i>The Lord Wills It</i>, in which case it is all in His Hands. Amen.<br /><br />"Couldn't you buy Trojans AND pray?"<br /><br />"Gasp! My Pastor says <i>The Bible</i> says NO! Only sluts use condoms! Or the pill. Or get abortions."Kathyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03176801494652946278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-29929981679646263732011-08-25T12:46:44.127-05:002011-08-25T12:46:44.127-05:00Hey folks, interesting as it is, I didn't mean...Hey folks, interesting as it is, I didn't mean to hijack the thread into a discussion of teen pregnancy. The question was meant to be rhetorical, to problematize the author's use of the correlation between the enforced virtue of having to work and a decline in teen pregnancy. If having to work produces so much virtue, you wouldn't expect to see it correlated with a decline in church attendance. Unless, that is, if going to church is antithetical to being virtuous.<br /><br />Now that's a thought. After all, a higher rate of church attendance does correlate with a higher rate of teen pregnancy. <br /><br />Actually, an interesting subject, one which, I recall, bears out in states with abstinence-only sex education.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-78309735875931359122011-08-25T11:41:54.458-05:002011-08-25T11:41:54.458-05:00ah, megan.
correlation, not causationah, megan.<br /><br />correlation, not causationAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-76041957080872519682011-08-25T11:16:33.028-05:002011-08-25T11:16:33.028-05:00Myles is completely wrong. Teenage pregnancies for...Myles is completely wrong. Teenage pregnancies for upper class and middle class girls don't result in that girl (or, god forbid, the boy!) falling down into poverty at all. Middle class and rich families routinely pay for abortions, have the child adopted out, or have the child raised by the parents or grandparents. The teenager doesn't have to suffer economic fall and rarely does. <br /><br />Poor people who have children at a young age *remain poor*--that should surprise no one. Poverty, lack of education, no job prospects are enduring parts of any economy as long as no external money or jobs come into the economy to boost job prospects for everyone.<br /><br />Myles, as usual, has it exactly backwards. Poor parents have poor children at *every age* because poverty keeps people poor. Rich people can have all the kids they want, whenever they want them, without falling in class status.<br /><br />Conversley, when middle and upper class women have families they can afford, but through divorce or illness lose their main source of income, all their virtue and education and those intangible benefits moralists like to assign to upper class people don't avail them of anything. Studies have shown over and over again that women and children fall in class rank and in economic standing with divorce, while men's status and life chances rise. That's because children are expensive--but try telling a nice upper class girl that when the stars are in her eyes and she thinks poverty is something that happens to poor people because they lack morality.<br /><br />aimaiAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-4690974735711899532011-08-25T10:20:40.271-05:002011-08-25T10:20:40.271-05:00If people really believed that they would hand out...If people really believed that they would hand out contraceptives to teens like candy on Halloween. They want to deny contraceptives, abortion and any social programs designed to use taxpayer money to help poor teens. Rich teens who become pregnant are a different matter, of course. Their dads give them an allowance to raise the baby and a housekeeper to babysit the child while they go to school. It's very strange that nobody tells them that they should be destitute so other girls learn to keep their knees together.<br /><br />Through my experience as teacher, I think a lot of girls have a baby because they want something in their lives, someone to love them, money to set up their own place away from their family. Maybe we could do something about that.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-30660187506537304282011-08-25T09:52:20.241-05:002011-08-25T09:52:20.241-05:00Well, without going into the merits of welfare ref...Well, without going into the merits of welfare reform in specific, pregnancies at age 15-17 are just really horrible in terms of <i>everything</i>; it more or less guarantees massive social problems down the line.<br /><br />Welfare can be structured to both be more generous and still discourage teen pregnancies, and I support its being more generous, but let's not lose sight of the fact that lower pregnancy rate among teens is an unblemished good thing, especially for the teens themselves.Mylesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-26853305444638151622011-08-25T09:25:10.277-05:002011-08-25T09:25:10.277-05:00Socialism.Socialism.Susan of Texashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00076915322771385454noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-48089215859154821532011-08-25T09:15:11.845-05:002011-08-25T09:15:11.845-05:00At last, the tenets of conservative philosophy hav...At last, the tenets of conservative philosophy have reached their destination, the Gilded Age::<br /><br />a. this is the best of all possible worlds;<br />b. as in Horatio Alger's stories, opportunity is equal for everyone; <br />c. so, all credit or blame for life's outcome falls on the individual;<br />d. probity is the primary determinant of that individual's success or failure;<br />e. poverty is, thus, a sign, and product, of immorality;<br />f. moral education, not financial assistance, is the solution to poverty.<br /><br />I guess if its already been done, there's no point reinventing the wheel.<br /><br />Funny thing, though: according to the author, falling teen pregnancy correlates with a drop in church attendance among the lower classes. How could that be?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-57868220164268018892011-08-25T07:48:16.248-05:002011-08-25T07:48:16.248-05:00I've often wished I was religious, just so I c...I've often wished I was religious, just so I could have the satisfaction of knowing people like French and McArdle would burn in hell when they died.Natenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-49909816932850547102011-08-25T07:40:56.598-05:002011-08-25T07:40:56.598-05:00Eighth circle of hell is where hypocrites go:
Bol...Eighth circle of hell is where hypocrites go:<br /><br />Bolgia Six: Hypocrites are punished in this circle. They are forced to wear heavy lead robes as they walk around the circumference of their circle. The robes are golden and resemble a monk’s cowl but are lined with heavy lead, symbolically representing hypocrisy. Also, Caiphas, the Pharisee who insisted on the execution of Jesus, is crucified in this circle, staked to the ground so that the ranks of the lead-weighted hypocrites march across him.<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MalebolgeAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-13343849366453750112011-08-25T04:36:20.270-05:002011-08-25T04:36:20.270-05:00Batocchio,
I respectfully disagree. Conservativis...Batocchio,<br /><br />I respectfully disagree. Conservativism only has one tenet:<br />"I deserve everything I have and more - MORE!!! - because I am superior in every way" (where I means either "the person speaking" or "me and my tribe").<br />The rest are just corollaries.bulbulhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14505565281151328789noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2222630007427380394.post-3492641423210659432011-08-25T04:19:45.687-05:002011-08-25T04:19:45.687-05:00A few weeks back, I was having dinner with my fath...A few weeks back, I was having dinner with my father and step-mother and their fellow conservative friends. The subject fell on the evils of Social Security and the lazy, useless bums that rely on it. When I gently brought up the fact that my father and step-mother eagerly accepted and cashed the SS checks for both my brother and me after the death of my mother, it was justified because well, our mommy died and because "we were broke!" Yes, after the furs and the diamonds and the trendy sports cars were bought, after the mortgage was taken out for the biggest house on the block and the tickets purchased for the fancy cruise with friends, indeed, there was no money left to feed the children. That, in an anecdotal nutshell, is the conservative mind.Clever Pseudonymnoreply@blogger.com