Over at The American Scene, the always sensible Noah Millman returns from the Labor Day Weekend to make some sensible comments about Sarah Palin: e.g., she might have made a better Keynote speaker, like Obama in 2004, than VP candidate. (By the way, though, how often do you think Democrats have kicked themselves since 2004 that they didn't let themselves get carried away at that convention and nominate Obama for Veep by acclamation back then, instead of what's his name, that loser with the hair? John Kerry might be President today.)
But Noah then added this postscript, after he realized that we're in the middle of a full-blown national freak-out over the various Palin Pregnancy stories, true and false, that have obsessed attention since he left for the weekend.
UPDATE: You know, I wrote this post, and made my little points, and then I started working back through some of the comments (not on my posts, actually – I haven’t gotten back that far, and I’m not sure I will). People are seriously losing their minds here, in a way that I’ve never seen before on this site. And not just people who have obviously wandered over here for the first time: regular readers are going off their rockers. I’m really not sure what we all ought to do about this. I wrote a little sermonette but I just deleted it because I can’t imagine anyone who’s gone off their rocker reading it and doing anything but getting angrier. I’m open to suggestions on what to do. Myself, I swear my next post will about Canadian theater.
Right.
And here’s the fundamental reason underlying all the rage on one side and amusement on the other over Sarah Palin: it’s all about … female fertility.
Human beings have extremely strong emotions on the topic of fertility. It’s an obsession — look at the celebrity gossip columns these days. The who is sleeping with whom stuff bores people now compared to the pregnancy news. Thus, celebrities auction off rights to pictures of their new babies for millions, even though all newborns look alike. The top breeding stock parents — Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt — were looking to snag something like $6 million for the exclusive rights to the first photos of their twins.
Now, the Breeding Wars have moved into the political arena. Barack Obama launched his Presidential run at the 2004 Democratic convention by devoting the first 380 words of his speech to describing in great detail the two stocks from which he was crossbred. His message is that by uniting in his DNA the two races, he will end the racial conflict that has long plagued this land. (Noah should take a look at Henry VII’s speech ending Shakespeare's “Richard III” for the classic expression of the logic of dynastic merger, in this case between the Lancasters and the Yorks.) Obama left out the part about his mom being 17 when she got pregnant and his father already being married with a kid and another on the way.
Palin has horned in on all that subliminal symbolism with her own. She’s had five kids while shooting caribou (a picture of her and a daughter standing over a huge beast she shot is the LA Times most emailed article of the day even though it's not an article, just a picture) and throwing the crooks out, and now she has a 17-year-old daughter who is pregnant and will marry a handsome hockey player.
My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer
Steve, I think you're great at tapping cultural archetypes and making them transparent. The mystery is why in a nation of 300 million and a world of 6 billion you have so little competition.
ReplyDeleteIt's like in the chattering classes we have a few thousand propagandists and one aspiring empiricist (you).
I think you hit your mark with Palin as fertility archetype, but I'd tweak it a little. (1) there's also a white racialist twist to it: in terms of fertility and red state values she's the mythical white woman the men in stormfront are always fatalistically bemoaning no longer exists, and that the women at stormfront silently smirk about not living up to. (2) The fertility goddess is not supposed to also be the chief executive and commander in chief, usurping the patriarch's role.
As such, in some ways she's both feminist and womanist. What completes the feminist/womanist circle is the way she's now winking at Hillary, performing a pro-life/pro-choice alliance.
In the end, she's a harmless tool of the patriarchy if she serves out as McCain's veep and then disappears to lesser political roles, kind of like Elizabeth Dole.
But if she ascends to the presidency, she becomes a sort of all strengths/no weaknesses female womanist feminist matriarchal archetype, minus only engaging in bisexuality, panracial adoption (like angelina jolie) and cuckoldry/polyandry/miscegenation (kind of like Obama's mom).
Hopefully Anonymous
http://www.hopeanon.typepad.com
Steve, I think some of the outrage can be explained by 1) middle-aged females who have repressed their maternal instincts and not had children so that they could pursue their careers, and who then become jealous of woman in stable marriages who decided to have children, and 2) men and younger women who support this empty lifestyle.
ReplyDelete- Maxwell
Of course Blue Whites are worried about the Sarah Palins of the world outbreeding them, and so are the more intelligent Red Whites. That's what "Idiocracy" is about.
ReplyDeleteSay what you want about Palin, but she's clearly just not very bright, and she has red-neck moral values. She's the dangerous combination of ignorance and ambition that the founders of the Republic have feared from Day One. I know no one reads Faulkner any more, but what he have here is a Snopes running for high office. Ironically someone like Palin can probably appeal to the lower class black and hispanic vote, because when you get down to it her values aren't much different from theirs.
At least no claims were made that it was to be a virgin birth.
ReplyDeleteFor what it's worth, Obama has now referred to his mother as a single teen mother in his speech expreesing sympathy with the Palins.
ReplyDeleteOn the broader point, I don't think everything can be expressed in terms of your theories. Most people, even liberals who nominally believe in sexual freedom, look at a seventeen-year-old pregnant and engaged girl and see dysfunction, not "a handsome hockey player." Maybe being knocked up by a handsome hockey player isn't as bad as being knocked up by Seth Rogan or Michael Cera, but isn't an impressive accomplishment. Knocked up is knocked up. That doesn't mean Sarah Palin is a bad mother; sometimes you try as hard as you can and still fail, but it is nonetheless dysfunctional.
I also don't see much resentment toward Sarah Palin's having five kids. The original rumor, while reprehensible and disgusting, was probably caused by someone hearing a garbled version of the truth about Bristol's pregnancy and combining it with the fact that 44 is a bit old for a baby and perhaps vague memories of the Nicholson/Darin/Clapton life stories mentioned below.
P.S. By this standard, is Jamie Lynn Spears (a red state native although she probably lives in California currently) admirably fertile? (She also claims she will get married, if I recall correctly.)
ReplyDeleteYou nailed it Mr. Sailor.
ReplyDeleteElsewhere, last evening I wrote: "[Bristol Pallin: I don't get it. The Outrage is hypocritical. Healthy horny fertile girls are the norm in the Land of the Mever-ending-long-Night aka Land of the Midnight Sun. The common practice is prompt marriage --- sometimes before, sometimes after the birth. Generally, abortion is anathama among the Frontier People --- and condoms are for Sissy southern folk.
Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" says it all: everything else is just a sideshow, the only thing that counts is how manyh of your genes you pass along. At heart most people realize this (and the extent to which they deny it is a pretty fair proxy of how removed from reality they are in general). Right now much of the world (not just the US) is on a dysgenic trend which can only spell disaster, but the forces of political correctness are so ascendant that to even broach the subject usually spells career suicide. The Palins represent a reversal of this trend, another way in which they hark back to the frontier days, but they are in the very small minority.
ReplyDeleteOh man, have you nailed it.
ReplyDeleteI think this theme also applies to the abortion and gay marriage debate.
A lot of Blue Staters do seem to really hate the idea of Red State breeders. This includes traditionalists like Lawrence Auster, condemning Palin for her daughter being pregnant at 17 - by her fiance!!. But what could be more traditional than pregnant at 17, married at 18? Waiting until you're 23 and out of college, or 28and got your Masters, or 35 and got your second job and a mortgage, before breeding is Blue State mores.
ReplyDeleteBeyond that, some people on the Left seem personally offended at the idea of whites breeding at all. One told me: "I visited Paris - the French are so racist - there were white babies everywhere!"
Maybe. Have you actually read the libs hyperventilating over Palin's daughter. I mean...I can't imagine anything more humdrum than a 17-year-old getting pregnant, but they are seriously making it out to be a catastrophic/disastorous/humiliating political failure on the part of McCain and Palin. WTF?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/9/1/13540/20367/584/582167
*And if McCain had vetted his fucking "choice" this wouldn't be happening. I don't think he knew before this weekend.*
Pregnant daughter? Drop her.
*It has nothing to do with her having a neglectful mother who gave her only abstinence lectures and religious fantasies with which to face the world.*
That's right. The first priority of a parent is to use the most effective possible strategy to prevent natural events from occurring. Republicans are *obsessed* with not breeding, and so it's amazing we use such witchcrafty techniques as going to church.
*It is appalling to me that this family would be dragged through a campaign. Can you imagine your own daughter, in a teenage pregnancy, being scrutinized by the international press while she is being married to the father of the baby...*
That strangely unaware comment got 45 upmods. Can *you* imagine a media so despicable as to "scrutinize" someone for getting pregnant? OMG OMG OMG pregnant! I couldn't before. But now I can. It's utterly pathetic.
Palin is going to be difficult for the Dems because she casts a bright light on how exactly the Dems are in opposition to the interests of mainstream voters.
ReplyDeleteIt's strange to watch liberals try to slam her on the following points:
(1) she's not an Ivy League-educated intellectual (state school, poly sci/journalist major)
(2) she's not the right sort of people, low bred (blue collar background, apparently happily married to a blue collar joe)
(3) She's not a dedicated careerist, barren, me-firster but has instead chosen to recklessly reproduce harming mother earth (5 kids)
(4) she's demonstrated irresponsible and terrible personal choices according to the elite mindset (married young, possibly pregnant and chose to have Downs Syndrome 5th child instead of abort)
(5) she's not an feminist fighting against patriarchial oppression (she was runner-up to Miss Alaska and clearly projects a traditional feminine attractiveness)
(6) she's not urbane sophisicate (she like snowmobiling outdoors, mild upper Midwest/Canadian accent, was a star basketball player jock)
(7) she's not PC (she kills the meat she eats instead of ordering it at 5 star restaurants)
(8) she's from a wacko boarderline libertairan state that values individual freedom over the nanny state (Alaska, rugged individualist, Buchanan support)
(9) she's not an experienced (corrupted) political insider (she's a outsider reformer)
For all these point that liberals criticize her on, most mainstream voters like her. Palin is the living embodiment of the anti-Dem life choice at an instinctual gut-level.
None of the other three men for POTUS or VP are anything that people can really identify with - they are the typical corrupt and out of touch political elites whose only common humanity is largely a media invention.
The Blue White's mock our concerns over minority fertility, yet get anxious when confronted with Red White fertility. Interesting....
ReplyDeleteI thought that fantasizing about smoking hot dominatrices killing stuff with high-caliber guns was the exclusive province of nerds.
ReplyDeleteTurns out that to get mainstream they must be fertile dominatrices.
A good article by Edward L Glaeser on the comparative economics of middle-class life in Houston and NYC (and LA) is now available at the City Journal site.
ReplyDeleteThe word "family" shows up occasionally, but the fertility issue is at best implied.
I was hoping that someone, somewhere, claiming to be conservative or even an independent-thinker would express some outrage at the awesome irony of McCain's pick for VP. Thankfully, out of the dozens of commentors at Isteve, a precious few do not disappoint.
ReplyDeleteNow I personally don't care for the politics or personalities (or even potential positions) of either presidential candidate or party. Nonetheless, I care for McCain's positions even less than I do for Obama's which is why, given this stinky dichotomy, I'm holding my nose and fully supporting Obama.
So I wouldn't be a Palin supporter in any case.
But why is it that so few (similarly nose-pinching) conservatives have the balls to honestly critique this choice rather than being all giddy about it? Yes it's delightfully, mischievously pleasurable that the Right is trying to beat the Left at their own game. It's funny, it's awesome and it brings a smile to one's face to think of the deflated disappointment in the Obama campaign as they were relishing having Obama incisor Rommel/Romney and they now cringe in terror at the fear of Biden being anything but absolutely deferring in his debate with his opposing candidate lest he look like an Evil White Male threateningly encroaching upon a young sexually-available woman.
But side in side with the giddiness, where is the Conservative sputtering outrage at McCain's flippantly violent anti-conservative first presidential decision? His SOLE presidential decision to date and the one that has a very good chance of being the MOST IMPORTANT one that he'll ever make (he's 72, constantly cancerous, and the proprietor of A ROOMFULL of serious files on his health history) is to appoint as very potential president-to-be someone whom:
- He met with only TWICE in his life before deciding to entrust THE FATE OF THE COUNTRY (and the world, and the future - to whatever degree Presidents influence those) to her. Does anyone think he would be similarly flippant about entrusting the fate of his children to her? or his wealth?!
- Has such an AMAZINGLY thin resume that WE HAVE NO REASON WHATSOEVER to assume that she'll be a remotely capable President of the United States of America.
- Is a wishy-washy beauty-queen sports-caster ALASKAN mother of five who, as Dennis Dale points out COULD ONLY possibly have been chosen as Vice President in a world where political actors are viewed no differently by the newsmedia and the masses than are movie actors.
- Is a woman.
Holy of Holies, did I just say that?! Blasphemy of Blasphemies! To the pillory at once!
Now, far be it from me to approximate at the political effectiveness of women in general or of particular types of women in particular (though I will comment that Golda Meir was largely responsible for the tragedy of the Yom Kippur war, Indira Gandhi doesn't seem to have done all too much good for India and Margaret Thatcher...well, fuck Margaret Thatcher. Britain still isn't out of the social hellhole that her stupid policies created).
But I'm serious about my ambiguity/ignorance. It may very VERY well be that humankind would be best served by having non-testosterone generated individuals in key positions of power. That's a worthy subject for investigation but it isn't my subject of interest in mentioning the fact of her being a female ("gender" is too slight a term here).
The question is one of simple, traditional, biologically preferable, Family Values.
My understanding is that family values are of some import to conservatives. Putting aside the question of female prowess in the steely halls of power, is there no Conservative corner remaining for questioning whether the world is best served by having them there in the first place? Whether Palin's family is best served by having her there is something best left to his doctors and her lawyers - but what of the country? What of the Role Model that she'll become? What of the awesome effect this will almost certainly have on the future of heterosexual relationships, marriages, families and birth-rates in this country? Good God, has nobody thought of this?!
As long as it was only "Those Liberals" who had their public sex-scandals, their tabloid triple marriages and their public-property women, most families could raise their children with the understanding that "those are the bad guys and we're not like them". But after wildly cheering-on and subsequently electing the hyper-promiscuous blouse-lifting Arnold Schwarzenegger, religiously bowing before the "golden microphone" of "El Rushbo" and - now - wildly cheering on AS REPRESENTING THE BEST OF CONSERVATIVE VALUES Ms. Sarah Palin... what Conservative future can there possibly be in this country?
Unless by "conservative" we mean nothing but Wall Street. Then we're doing just fine.
mnuez
P.S. For a high-definition, black and white snapshot of the turning point in the war on traditional family values that Conservatives have since lost (so much so their supposed spokesmen hurriedly trip over each other in their race to out-radical their radical adversaries) read Dabney.
Seriously, you'll thank me, read Dabney.
[In Imperial Rome] "children were a luxury which only the poor could afford."
ReplyDelete- Will Durant, Heroes of History
Steve Sailer: Now, the Breeding Wars have moved into the political arena... The Blue Whites are alarmed and outraged to be reminded that the Red Whites can afford to outbreed them and are outbreeding them.
ReplyDeleteYou might want to consider the possibility that you are making a couple of mistaken assumptions here.
First, the assumption that the Blues have any desire to make babies in the first place.
And second, even if you grant the Blues their own nihilism, the assumption that the Blues would be content to sit back peacefully and watch other people NOT join them in nihilism.
Which is to say: You have to consider the possibility that the Blues are on the warpath to eradicate all of mankind from the face of the earth.
PS: Bristol, you go girl.
Another example of solidaristic frontier people taking over the feud-riven capital.
ReplyDeleteObama left out the part about his mom being 17 when she got pregnant
ReplyDeleteObama made exactly this point, explicitly, in his (superb) response to questions about the Palin pregnancy.
Anyway, you're stretching it too far here. Palin is a disastrous choice for McCain, making him look like a loose cannon. She's just wildly underqualified and it's a little much for her to learn all the stuff she doesn't know (roughly: everything) while managing her active family soap opera.
Here's a quote from the handsome 17 year old boyfriend's Myspace page, before it was taken down:
On a MySpace page subsequently taken down, Johnston boasts, "I'm a f - - -in' redneck" who likes to snowboard and ride dirt bikes.
"But I live to play hockey. I like to go camping and hang out with the boys, do some fishing, shoot some s- - - and just f - - -in' chillin' I guess."
"Ya f - - - with me I'll kick [your] ass," he added.
He also claims to be "in a relationship," but states, "I don't want kids."
There are *some* legitimate reasons why people think it's a bad idea for girls to get pregnant by their HS boyfriends.
This blog entry is another keen insight, Sailer. Hell of an insight.
ReplyDeleteBut does it really matter? Both McCain and Obama are nation wreckers and are firmly onboard with the Invade the World, Invite the World program of their money masters.
The 2008 election is another kabuki dance between New World Order puppets.
1. The ultra-radical Thesis is presented
2. then the middle of the road Anti-Thesis emerges
...then through a process of compromise (guided by sound reason)...
3. the radical Synthesis (dialed back from ultra-radical) is produced.
REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT. All hail Trotsky's Permanent Revolution.
Steve, I really don't understand why and other people on the right like Lawrence Auster have had such positive reactions to Palin. Is it because you are having a positive reaction to the "tribal fertility totem?"
ReplyDeleteThe Palins just don't seem very upright or respectable to me. Let us count the ways:
* the daughter is pregnant in high school!!!!
* Todd Palin has a DUI conviction
* the Palins themselves had a shotgun wedding
* the Palins didn't take any steps (like a vasectomy) to ensure they wouldn't have a baby in their forties and during Sarah Palin's tenure as governor
* the family drama with the brother-in-law
* Sarah Palin's sister is at least twice divorced
* Sarah Palin's sister and ex-husband had 9 kids between them
The Palins are just not very wholesome.
I'm all for white conservatives outbreeding white liberals, it's just that I just wish the white conservatives were better behaved.
If it became "in vogue" amongst red state whites to make "3 kids the new 2 kids" and the white birthrate in flyover country got to be 2.5, you'd never hear the end of the lefty media telling us that we will all be dying of starvation, thirst, global warming, locusts, and every other eco-catastrophe imaginable.
ReplyDeleteMr. Sailer has introduced the hammer to the nail's head once again.
Regression toward the mean:
ReplyDeleteDoe-eyed Bristol Palin, 17, and ruggedly handsome Levi Johnston, an 18-year-old self-described "f---in' redneck," have been dating a year, locals in Wasilla, Alaska, told the Daily News.
I hate to say that this may be one certain case where Sarah's political career may be taking precedence over her motherly instincts. Sarah may be pro-life, and believe in marrying when you get knocked up. But how many mother's would let their daughters marry that guy?
Then again, maybe I'm just jealous.
The Blue Whites are alarmed and outraged to be reminded that the Red Whites can afford to outbreed them and are outbreeding them.
ReplyDeleteThe thought of the Red Whites outbreeding the Blue Whites would give immense satisfaction, if I didn't simultaneously know that the Blue Whites in concert with many Yellow Reds are importing Blue Bronzes and Blue Yellows and Blue Blacks to outbreed even the Red Whites.
No satisfaction at all.
Oh those hockey sticks!!
ReplyDeleteWow, feminism has really triumphed. Who would think we would see the day where conservatives, of all people, would be cheering on a woman for "having it all" - which is to say, insisting on the right to simultaneously have small children & a super high-powered job? That conservatives would be patting themselves on the back for creating a "historic" event by presenting a female VP candidate?
ReplyDeleteJust a few years ago, a yuppie lawyer who raced back to work shortly after giving birth would've been pilloried by us. But now, here we have a woman with a special needs infant no less being praised for campaigning to be VP. Will we hear one word about the possible connection between Palin's busy work schedule & her daughter's pregnancy? Unlikely. We'll just keep shouting "You go girl!"
Feminism isn't dead, as so many like to claim. It's just accepted wisdom now, so woven into the social fabric, even in conservative enclaves, that we don't notice it anymore.
Bring up any of these issues with conservatives, and they'll defend her with the language of liberal feminists. Palin herself talks of "glass ceilings" and how men who claim that mothers of infants perhaps shouldn't be governors are "Neanderthals". Gloria Steinem couldn't have said it better. But my hats off to her - she and her sisters obviously won the war.
I'm guessing it's a prom night baby. Levi was a senior last year, Bristol a junior, and, assuming exactly 5 mos., the baby would've been conceived April 2nd - about when proms are traditionally held.
ReplyDeleteBristol's just joined a long and proud tradition.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteA lot of insight in this post. Could you update your Feb. 11 article on housing costs to take account of the crash in housing prices? California housing prices have dropped around 30% in just the past year. Does that mean it will lean more Republican? Not that it matters in the presidential race (since the immigration wave of the 1980s, the state reliably gives the Demo a 1 million-vote edge). But it could matter in congressional and other elections.
Palin will definitely captivate women. No doubt about that.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is whether Biden's oppressive, anti-male legislation will draw much attention from men.
On every single blog I read, whether Megan McArdle or Marginal Revolution or Steve Sailer or Half Sigma, a post on Sarah Palin elicits huge numbers of comments.
ReplyDeleteAnd there are like 5 stories on Sarah Palin among the New York Times most emailed articles, including the top spot.
Very interesting.
As a left-libertarian, I'm not bothered at all by the fact of Bristol Palin's pregnancy. Maybe it's a sad situation for the family, but maybe it's a joyous one. Maybe it's a little bit of both. I'm glad that the media and the blogosphere seem to agree that it's none of our damn business, even as we're all falling over each other to have the first and last word.
ReplyDeleteBut if Malia Obama (or the daughter of any black politician) were pregnant at 16 by a boy with black ghetto roots (which, let's be honest, is the urban equivalent of the gun-totin' Levi Johnston...innocent as the kid may be, he's a type that you don't want hanging around your daughter) I have no doubt that you right-wingers wouldn't be quite so generous and understanding about a simple little matter of fertility.
Remember how you made fun of/criticized
ReplyDelete* Michelle Obama for her stupid thesis
* Obama's mother for getting pregnant by a Kenyan who was married with a family ("It's the American Dream!" you said)
* Obama for consorting with the Revered Wright.
...among other things.
Why don't you make fun of or criticize Palin and her family for their low class ways?
Maybe the rage is connected with the fact that white liberals actually think that lots of kids is bad for the environment, and unwed mothers are bad for society; but they really can't criticize minorities, who are the chief offenders, so they take it out on the Palins.
ReplyDeleteIf all the immigrants were poor, oppressed Christian whites I suspect that the golden door would have slammed shut long ago.
I don't know if it's fear of being outbred; I think it's more that having more than one or two children (preferably in your mid to late thirties) seems very trailer-parkish to your average whiteperson. It disturbs whitepeople to think that people who look like them can behave like that; they expect minorities in the inner city to have lots of kids, presumably because they lack things like access to Whole Foods Markets and hemp sandals, but it is downright frightening to think that non-oppressed ethnic groups could behave like that.
ReplyDeleteThe whole Bristol Palin pregnancy thing thus reinforces whitepeople's idea that Sarah Palin is the wrong sort of white person altogether, what with the guns, the mooseburgers, the oddly named children, the son in the military, the blue-collar husband, and now with the pregnant 17-year-old who is going to marry a kid who describes himself as a f---in' redneck.
To Anonymous and everyone else, Steve has said this many times before:
ReplyDeleteThe reason why he talks about things like Obama/Jeremiah-Wright or anything else is because NO ONE ELSE IS.
Whereas, with Sarah Palin and her family, well, EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT IT.
There is not a whole lot that he can add. Unless he finds something that no one else is talking about...like Affordable Family Formation.
This is right up there with those people that say Steve is Anti-Semitic, unless he talks about something that happens to be pro-Jewish. As always, he is looking to provide value. And value, for him, means talking about those things that go unsaid.
Steve, keep up the great work.
Pregnancies are more interesting than Obama´s endless identity problems. Let´s Palin win so Steve will have something to blog about. A reason as good as any.
ReplyDeleteThe Palins are just not very wholesome.
ReplyDeleteThank God! Think how boring it would be around here if McCain had selected Pawlenty or Romney. Steve might still be posting on Olympic sprinters.
This article is about the Duggar family which had a huge number of children. It's another fantastic example of "Tribal Fertility Totem Elicits Strong Emotions." Excerpt:
ReplyDelete"Perhaps the point is this: Why does this sort of bizarre hyperbreeding only seem to afflict antiseptic megareligious families from the Midwest? In other words -- assuming Michelle and Jim Bob and their massive brood of cookie-cutter Christian kidbots will all be, as the charming photo suggests, never allowed near a decent pair of designer jeans or a tolerable haircut from a recent decade, and assuming that they will all be tragically encoded with the values of the homophobic asexual Christian right -- where are the forces that shall help neutralize their effect on the culture? Where is the counterbalance, to offset the damage?
"Where is, in other words, the funky tattooed intellectual poetess who, along with her genius anarchist husband, is popping out 16 funky progressive intellectually curious fashion-forward pagan offspring to answer the Duggar's squad of über-white future Wal-Mart shoppers? Where is the liberal, spiritualized, pro-sex flip side? Verily I say unto thee, it ain't lookin' good.
"Perhaps this the scariest aspect of our squishy birthin' tale: Maybe the scales are tipping to the neoconservative, homogenous right in our culture simply because they tend not to give much of a damn for the ramifications of wanton breeding and environmental destruction and pious sanctimony, whereas those on the left actually seem to give a whit for the health of the planet and the dire effects of overpopulation. Is that an oversimplification?"
Steve --
ReplyDeleteComments such as Vanya's also illustrate the class/regionalism of the elites, who mostly come from the East Coast and attend the Ivies. Palin is a direct threat to them, as she is a Jacksonian type "frontier" pol, in the Jackson mode.
She also directly challenges PC and Multiculturalism -- she hunts, fishes, likes guns, snowmobiles, ran a fishing boat, etc. All part of the elite social mores depending on a static, ever-declining population constrained by their "betters."
Women however, HATE HATE HATE Palin mostly. Because she does all the things they don't like: marries a guy of low-middling status, blue collar origin who stayed blue collar, and is not a big shot rainmaker. Even worse, she's "uncool" and doesn't try to be part of the "Mean Girls" group, does not obsess over fashion designers, doesn't have all the cultural mavens fawning over her. Doesn't wear designer dresses, turned down the state plane, limo, security detail etc.
Men love her, cause she acts like a man.
Women wouldn't vote for McCain anyway, they mostly vote power-status-"coolness" and trends, which means Obama. McCain will win men though, big time, with Palin. It cements his macho status over wimp-entitled minority Obama. Who just exudes weakness.
Latest polls show Obama with an 8 point lead. That's almost entirely due to women not liking Palin. However, as more men warm up to her, that gender gap is going to be in favor of McCain.
The Palins are the Simpsons, with Kelly Bundy standing in for Lisa.
ReplyDeleteI was pushing for Tim Pawlenty, who, like many able politicians before him, worked his way up from the working class.
But Sarah Palin has never left that class. Brilliant move by McCain. The Stealth Sailer Strategy. I'd been guessing 300 electors for McCain. Make that 400 now.
(And can't someone at Blogger.com do something about their Freudian "word verifications"? The latest one, ukyafux, sounds like an Eskimo sex act.)
Well, I wouldn't vote for her for any office higher than dogcatcher, but but at least she is unlikely to jump on the affirmative action bandwagon. Having a husband who does a real man's job, she is unlikely to press for women's quotas for firemen and carpenters. And politican is a white collar job, the type of job that Steve has said women have a natural talent for.
ReplyDeleteWomen however, HATE HATE HATE Palin mostly.
ReplyDeleteThat's ridiculous. Women love her and seem to be the most eager to embarrass themselves on television by canonizing her for birthing a disabled baby & having a non-aborting pregnant teen daughter, not to mention fiercely defending her run for VP while she has an infant at home. And in that aspect (the appropriate role of a new mother with an infant at home) - Palin challenges no PC (read: feminist) ideas, in fact, she spouts them out constantly.
Bristol's hubby-to-be sounds like a walking political liability. If I were the Palins, after the shotgun marriage I'd pay to go far away for a while. If he's good enough to play minor league or college hockey, give him an incentive to do that in some remote part of Canada; if not, get him to enlist in the military.
ReplyDelete- Fred
I have to confess, when I saw Levi's picture, the first thing that popped in my head was the redneck football player in Idiocracy yelling at the cheerleaders, "Ah'm gon' f*** all y'all!"
ReplyDelete--Senor Doug
You nailed it, Steve. I admit it, I'm always happy to see attractive white women having kids. After all, we are in a demographic war.
ReplyDeleteWhen news about Palin's daughter's pregnancy broke, I immediately suspected the hostile response from the Left was motivated by horror at the sight of white fertility. These same Europhobic orcs remain completely silent in the face of rising birthrates in the African, Asian, and mestizo communities.
I know no one reads Faulkner any more, but what he have here is a Snopes running for high office.
ReplyDeleteUh,no. Flem Snopes was impotent. Palin is more Drusilla from "The Unvanquished". Stick to reading Updike.
Testing99 comes in with another lying post (Women dont like Palin).
ReplyDeleteWomen are LOVING Palin, and you know it.
Were your first words a lie testing99? I bet they were.
Wow, feminism has really triumphed.
ReplyDeleteIt really has. I just watched someone from Focus on the Family defend Sarah Palin on the grounds that "you wouldn't ask a man with a baby if he should campaign to be VP!" and warble about how great it is that a woman has been selected. Good grief. Has NOW infiltrated conservative ranks? It's over folks - when you start using your opponent's language to defend yourself, you've conceded the game.
, and now she has a 17-year-old daughter who is pregnant and will marry a handsome hockey player.
Let's not get carried away with romanticizing this - what differentiates the Palin family is that they have the ability to force this hockey player to marry their daughter. I'm guessing that if Sarah Palin was a local waitress, this self-described "f--kin' redneck" would not agree to marry this girl. Most families do not have the ability to pressure teenage boys to assume the role of husband and provider when they knock up their daughters.
Leave it to all the rah-rah Republicans to mysteriously justify the fact that proven moron McCain, somehow bucked his self-serving and egoist personality and made a prescient pick in Sarah Palin - except of course, that her daugher is acting, as Half Sigma would put it, like a low-class "prole" and she's about to marry a kid who's going nowhere and calls himself "a f**king redneck".
ReplyDelete"But what could be more traditional than pregnant at 17, married at 18?"
ReplyDeleteGetting married at 17, pregnant at 18?
Funny thing; I keep hearing that Bristol Palin is going to marry the father, has anyone asked the boy?
"The Palins just don't seem very upright or respectable to me. Let us count the ways"
ReplyDeletePalin may not be brilliant, but what are you going to do - the WASP world has been destroyed.
The once uptight world of WASPs, has been replaced by an utter void that will accept anything. The children of the 60's have succeeded in destroying what appears to have been the zenith of white potential.
Palin reminds me of my wife who is far more intelligent than her "country ways" would have one believe. I would also say that Palin probably has a very high libido and that is something to appreciate in a woman. I know I have personally wondered what it would be like to Palin's intern.
Oh women DO hate Palin. Single women certainly. Only married women with more than two kids like Palin, and only a few of those.
ReplyDeleteYou can easily check if I'm right or wrong, go onto any non-political entertainment blog and see what women are saying about Palin.
She's "cheetoh-trash" like Britney in their view, while guys love her like she's the Tomb Raider Lara Croft character come to life.
What women hate: her blue collar husband, mostly. For obvious reasons. Not what women fantasize about (it's Brad Pitt). Jolie's habit of adopting "cool" African babies ala Madonna is "chic" while Palin's birthing her own is derided by women (but men like, for obvious reasons).
Women want status, power, bling, accessories, fashion, and above a Brad Pitt like guy. The deeply feminized press reacted viscerally, in a way they don't to say Mitt Romney having five kids. Because even though they don't like him, Mitt Romney is a A-Lister, powerful/handsome guy who is definitely upper class.
Women have voted this way since JFK. Go ahead, go onto any gossip/entertainment blog and see what women say about Palin: she's Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears combined. "Trailer Trash," mostly because of her rural Alaskan lifestyle and blue collar husband.
Obama was going to get those votes anyway, he's the RockStar Celebrity. Which women are obsessed with btw. Check out the mags in your grocery store checkout lines.
McCain gets most men because Palin's Lara Croft persona while it repels women like a Star Trek Convention, attracts men like free beer at a tailgate party.
I thought too that women would like Palin, but they don't, and after surfing around I can see why: most of all it's her blue collar husband.
I don't know whether it's amusing or horrifying that so many folks opposed to Palin - I mean here, on this thread - are doing so on the basis of some amazing assumptions about what she and her family are like. Vanya thinks she's clearly not very bright? Huh? And your evidence, attorney? The quotes from the Kos folks who pretend to know what Bristol's home sex-ed was? Mnuez of the All-Caps who cannot understand elementary distinctions in his opponents' arguments but interprets conservatives' statements for them? Half a dozen others calling them low-class?
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, a lot of the people being excited by a Palin candidacy are doing the same thing in the opposite direction, attributing virtues to her that we have scant evidence for. But critics, your prejudices are leaking out all over. Comment preview is your friend, hear?
17-year-old who is going to marry a kid who describes himself as a f---in' redneck
ReplyDeleteHave you forgotten what it's like to be an 18-year-old boy with more testosterone than good sense?
I like this kid. It would be cool to throw the football around with him.
Oh my god, here's evidence the Democrats are going to lose: they don't have the sense to attack Gov. Palin for waxing a reindeer. (Know what the difference betweeen a caribou and a reindeer is?) That's right, here's this mean lady from Alaska, going around, basically murdering Rudolph, and not a peep from the left.... (Never tasted caribou but I've always wanted to.)
ReplyDelete"Wow, feminism has really triumphed. Who would think we would see the day where conservatives, of all people, would be cheering on a woman for "having it all" - which is to say, insisting on the right to simultaneously have small children & a super high-powered job?"
ReplyDeleteWell, having spent 7 and a half years of my life nursing white babes and 3 years as a La Leche League Leader, it seems to me that being a Governor or VP is far more compatible with babymaking than being an RN, for instance.
You can, if you wield enough power, breastfeed your baby IN YOUR OFFICE! And if your underlings don't like it, they can step out.
Take baby along on the campaign trail in a sling. During breastfeeding sessions, you can mentally compose your next speech.
The poor RN is forced to find daycare for her infant, which is often very difficult; is separated from babe for upwards of 12 hours a day, necessitating scrambling to find time during her shift for pumping and milk storage, along with constant worry about her baby's well-being; and chronic sleep deprivation caused by the collision of a colicky baby crying all night and an alarm clock that rings at 5 a.m.
Whoo boy. Who wants to have a kid under those kinds of oppressive conditions?
You want us white women to breed? Okay, guys, you do the Florence-Nightingale-type work and we'll do the power lunches. I'd be happy to have had 5 kids with that deal.
What is that, like three or four anonymouses who can't figure out the difference between a broken family and an intact family? Obama's mother got herself abandoned, remember? She basically went globe-trotting for the kind of male who'd like nothing better than to impregnate and dump a nice white girl. Happens all the time - deny it if you want.
ReplyDeleteAs far as you geniuses know, the Palins know and like the father-to-be. I thought privacy politicking was supposed to be the exclusive domain of the left.
Girl gets pregnant, without even the excuse of being black (which excuses everything to you people - deny it if you want) and her family DOESN'T kick her out (isn't that what "puritans" do ... didn't your Saint Nathaniel of Hawthorne with his novel?)
Face it, you're just annoyed that convervative middle-American types have an understanding of family loyalty and love that you progressives lack.
The "f**king redneck" wing of the GOP wishes to tell all y'all SWPL effete panty-waist sissy-fags to go screw yourselves.
ReplyDeleteLevi Johnston - rock on, dude.
Bristol - you go, girl.
Regarding Palin:
ReplyDeleteI do like her better than the average cut-off-at-the-neck Washington professional woman, but the fact remains that she is presently not qualified to be President if McCain drops dead. She is a piece of marketing brilliance on his part, though. He may well win the election of he can read the electorate as well as he does the media.
On Bristol,
"she has a 17-year-old daughter who is pregnant and will marry a handsome hockey player"
I don't give quarter to any so-called engagement unless the girl has a ring. And given this guy's personality I'm not optimistic about the longevity of any such marriage even if her dad does stick a shotgun in his back and march him down the aisle.
I LOVE it when I hear "she's not qualified"!
ReplyDelete1) ...And John Edwards was?
2) ...Please explain why Barack isn't the understudy?
I thought too that women would like Palin, but they don't, and after surfing around I can see why: most of all it's her blue collar husband.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right. And it's for that reason that some women, many who profess to be feminists, didn't vote for Hillary in the primaries. Elitist whites want to win the White House without the Bubba vote.
"Here's a quote from the handsome 17 year old boyfriend's Myspace page, before it was taken down:"
ReplyDeleteListen, if you have 5 kids in today's America, no matter how smart you are (remember, regressing to the mean), they're going to do stupid stuff and put it online or date people who do stupid stuff and put it online.
Yes, this is "prole behavior" but it makes Palin look like a human being, and for all the human faults she and her family have I'll take them over the Clintons, Kennedys or the great black hope and his diversity consultant wife.
Levi Johnston - rock on, dude.
ReplyDeleteYeah dude, awesome. Good move knocking up that chick and getting yourself forced into a marriage you clearly weren't dreaming of. Don't worry, those extra 5 years or so of freedom before adopting the responsibilities of a father, husband, and provider probably would've sucked. On the bright side, you can probably arrange for a quickie divorce in a few years when the heat dies down.
Funny thing; I keep hearing that Bristol Palin is going to marry the father, has anyone asked the boy?
No one cares what he wants. This ending in marriage is the only way for Palin to save face. That boy is under some serious pressure.
We should give Alaska back to Russia. Or to the Eskimos.
ReplyDeletePalin is way too feminist and matriarchal. Feminism is what has destroyed Western culture. I can't vote for a ticket that has a female on it. And if she ever becomes president, I will leave this country permanently.
ReplyDelete"Assistant Village Idiot said...
ReplyDeleteI don't know whether it's amusing or horrifying that so many folks opposed to Palin......
.....But critics, your prejudices are leaking out all over."
Well said. There seems to be a lot of projection going on here. My first impression of this lady is that I like her, and that she seems like a pretty good pick by McCain, at least as an exercise in political calculation. But I don't know what makes her or her family tick, and I don't necessarily want to know.
What people seem to have lost track of, is that she is only the candidate for an office that was once described as "not being worth a bucket of warm spit". McCain's in the first seat, and this Maverick doesn't listen to any Goose. What will a McCain-Palin whitehouse be like? Probably a lot like a McCain-Romney, a McCain-Pawlenty, or a McCain-Lieberman whitehouse. Very McCainy.
People like me are against red-state fertility because it interferes with our plan to eliminate whites by lowering their birthrate. But no matter, we're still winning. If you think a dumb redneck like Palin can stop us, think again. We control everything that counts, and don't you forget it. You people are history. BWAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteWhite fertility is SO gauche.
ReplyDeleteI love comments like "Say what you want about Palin, but she's clearly just not very bright." I don't know if she is bright or not, but it's silly to assume that just because she attended the University of Idaho instead of a top 20 University that she's not that intelligent. No elite universities are looking to scoff up talented, rural working class whites like they are scouring the country for mediocrities with a little more melanin in their skin like Michelle Obama. I highly doubt that rural whites from the Northwest and Alaska have gone through the "Bell Curvian" IQ sorting process to anywhere near the extent that the more urban parts of the country have. Even in my state of PA, if one compares the non-affirmative action admittee students in the honors program at Penn State University to the University of Pennsylvania, there is not much of a difference in SAT scores (and hence g). The backgrounds of the kids are very different, however. In addition to a horde of Asians, the whites at UPenn who are not there to staff the sports teams (which constitute a disgracefully large portion of the student body) are mostly Jews and old-line Protestant WASPs (Episcopalians, Presbyterians, etc. - not Evangelicals, Catholics, methodists and other low church protestants). In all these groups, prestige is very important and families are willing to sacrifice $50k a year for their (usually small number) of offspring. By contrast, the white kids in the Penn State Honors program are more likely to come from the rural German and other evangelical or low church protestant families, C. and E. European Catholics from coal-cracking towns, and Irish and Italian Catholics from the State's more urban areas. In all these groups, the burning need to blow $50k a year on an Ivy league education is not so common and an offer of full room, board and tuition at the state honors program is more appealing than being a debt-saddled UPenn grad.
ReplyDelete-Philly Guy
And on we continue with the PROM NIGHT KNOCKUP. (Given the date of conception it's a reasonable guess).
ReplyDeleteIronically someone like Palin can probably appeal to the lower class black and hispanic vote, because when you get down to it her values aren't much different from theirs.
WTF? If that were the case her family photo would include no father and 5 children who look nothing alike. Oh, and we'd be talking about 14-year-old Willow's pregnancy, not Bristol's.
By this standard, is Jamie Lynn Spears (a red state native although she probably lives in California currently) admirably fertile?
The Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy just validated what we already knew of the Spears family - the basic disfunctionality and craziness. The Bristol Palin pregnancy also validates what we know so far of the Palin family - that they're basically smart, decent people who handle crises in the traditional, conservative fashion.
Please don't suggest that children from "proper families" just don't get pregnant. There's a reason aristocratic women are big on Planned Parenthood, and it isn't just because they're all eugenicists.
I keep hearing that Bristol Palin is going to marry the father, has anyone asked the boy?
Of course none of us know the guy, but I think encouraging Bristol to marry the father is the one possibly politically calculated act in the whole story. Perhaps Levi Johnston is a crazy teenager about to bud into a responsible young adult - happens all the time. Perhaps they're gunna delay the marriage until after the election then silently push him out of the picture. Or perhaps they're gunna put Bristol on the patch until she sees if the marriage can work.
but the fact remains that she is presently not qualified to be President if McCain drops dead. She is a piece of marketing brilliance on his part, though.
And who is? Honestly, what person, on the ticket or off it, who could win in November, has the sense to run this country?
Remember how you made fun of/criticized Michelle Obama for her stupid thesis, Obama's mother for getting pregnant by a Kenyan who was married with a family, Obama for consorting with the Revered Wright...Why don't you make fun of or criticize Palin and her family for their low class ways?
ReplyDeleteThe story of Obama and his parents is one long stupid, insterspersed with bouts of egotism and anti-Americanism. The story of the Palin family is one of generally responsible behavior punctuated by the occasional mistake. There's a difference there, and anyone with any sense can see it.
I reserve the right to revise and extend my remarks, though I don't think I'll need to.
"Tripp" sounds like he'd fit right in with the Palin boys. Track, Trig and Tripp.
ReplyDeletetravis said: "Uh,no. Flem Snopes was impotent. Palin is more Drusilla from "The Unvanquished". Stick to reading Updike."
ReplyDeleteI think "Light in August" may be the more relevant tale, with Bristol in the role of Lena Grove, and Obama as Joe Christmas.
Otherwise, I concur. Stick to reading Updike.
I agree with Philly Guy on the question of Palin's intelligence. Who knows? How many of us had even heard of her two weeks ago?
ReplyDeleteThis obsession with Ivy League universities as intelligence/status markers is one that afflicts only a very small percentage of the American public, or even the smarter fraction of the American public. Outside of the upper classes in the Boston-Washington corridor, there are lots of people who send their kids to "whatever" state university because it's affordable and close to home. The kids aren't dissappointed about not going to Harvard because it never occured to them to go to Harvard in the first place.
I suppose if you're Levi Johnston, and you're obsessed with hockey, then you assume that EVERYONE with a lick of athletic ability would jump at that chance to play hockey, and therefore those who don't, can't. It's really difficult for a person like this to realize that the world is full of people who don't particularly give a shit about playing hockey, even if they could.
Anonymous: Don't worry, those extra 5 years or so of freedom before adopting the responsibilities of a father, husband, and provider probably would've sucked.
ReplyDeleteYeah, let's see what we would have done with those extra 5 years of freedom.
Freshman Year: Phenomenology of Anthropomorphic Global Climate Change [SATISIFIES MATH/SCIENCE REQUIREMENT]
Sophomore Year: 20th Century French Existentialism
Junior Year: Dworkin and the Deconstruction of Patrimony
Senior Year: Progessive Issues in GLBT (LGBTQ, LGBTQQ, GLBTQ?) Theory
Master of Fine Arts Thesis: Photo Essay Documentary of my Shemale Surgery
Versus 5 years of getting it on with this chick and making babies with her.
Levi Johnston, I say it again: ROCK ON, DUDE!!!
Black Sea: It's really difficult for a person like this to realize that the world is full of people who don't particularly give a shit about playing hockey, even if they could.
ReplyDeleteThe first part of your comment was pretty reasonable, but then you finished with this gem - how in the world do you know what is "difficult" for Levi Johnston "to realize"?
Philly Guy - this "low church" stuff is just cracking me up.
ReplyDeleteBTW - is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church low or high?
PS: If you are really interested in this topic, then you ought to have a gander at Spengler's Power and the Evangelical Womb [if you haven't already] - see especially this table.
"Maybe being knocked up by a handsome hockey player isn't as bad as being knocked up by Seth Rogan or Michael Cera..."
ReplyDeleteHaving since seen a picture of this "handsome" guy's mug, I can no longer stand by this statement.
"The Jamie Lynn Spears' pregnancy just validated what we already knew of the Spears family - the basic disfunctionality and craziness."
The younger Spears is also nominally engaged. We'll see if either marriage takes place and, if it does, whether it lasts longer than the marriage of Barack Obama Sr. and Ann Dunham, whose shortness several have cited as a difference between Dunham's situation and Bristol Palin's. (I will agree that Levi is unlikely to be a bigamist with a secret wife in Africa.)
I disassociate myself from those who claim Sarah Palin is not intelligent or that she is white trash. Even the best mothers sometimes fail, but fail she did.
P.S. Proms in early April? Maybe that is a more benign western tradition (compared to the alleged tradition of getting knocked up, which I doubt is borne out by statistics). Eastern proms are in late May.
Women hate Palin because of her blue collar husband?
ReplyDeleteI don't know what you're talking about. I really like Palin though I would never hunt (unless I had to.) He reminds me of my blue collar dad, brother, friends, some people who saved my life, and others.
Blue collar husband? If they are the gentlemanly type, those are the guys to have for husbands. They know how to DO stuff that needs doing. Their price is greater than rubies.
Look. We know the Obama stiffs are out and about. This campaign is bankrolled by some enormous interests and they are on the internet tearing their hair out, clawing to get Palin out of the way, because she stole O's thunder, such as it was.
Nah. Women don't hate her--not that many. One of us did ask--why oh why did she accept. It's hard enough being 17 (the daughter) without going through this scrutiny. We're quite sympathetic.
The haters you are talking about are paid bloggers, or whiterpeople who have gone insane.
The very idea of whites having children is simply too disgusting for words.
ReplyDeleteGive them a break, they're just ignorant hicks. They can't be expected to know any better.
ReplyDeleteHey Zog, we don't want the yokels getting wise to our plans. You need to be more discreet.
ReplyDeleteSteve, the Romans had a stock phrase: "Plebs non gentum habet," meaning, I think, no family cohesion, no legitimate heirs, and not much to inherit ... In other words, no middle-class-ness.
ReplyDeleteI think the Palin family flunks this pleb-ness test.
"2) ...Please explain why Barack isn't the understudy?"
ReplyDeleteWell, there's this process in America known as 'voting'...
"The story of Obama and his parents is one long stupid, insterspersed with bouts of egotism and anti-Americanism. The story of the Palin family is one of generally responsible behavior punctuated by the occasional mistake. There's a difference there, and anyone with any sense can see it."
I know nothing about Palin's parents, do you? And how, exactly do you define 'anti-Americanism?'Could it be defined as challenging Roe -v- Wade?
"Of course none of us know the guy, but I think encouraging Bristol to marry the father is the one possibly politically calculated act in the whole story."
I think you missed the point; I have not been keeping track, but has the boy, yet proposed to Bristol? Maybe he wants to sow his wild oats for a few years (although if he's as much of a hellraiser as he claims to be, he probably will married or single.)
Lucius: If Levi wants to skip college and become a husband and father at age eighteen, that's his right and his business, provided he does it in the husband first, father second order. By doing it in the wrong order, however, he has caused the shadow of the shotgun to always hang over the marriage and lessened its prospects of success.
ReplyDeleteI doubt very much that teenage marriage was Levi and Bristol's original plan. If it had been, they could have restrained themselves a few months longer. They should be applauded for not having an abortion, but not as fertility heroes.
Lucius,
ReplyDeleteStop being disingenuous. You know what I mean by WASP. Not generic white, or Anglo, or Protestant, but the old elite affiliated with traditional, moderate Protestant Churches from urban areas (mostly in the Northeast and Tidewater regions) that largely controlled finance and politics in the US until the 1950s, when they were forced to share there predominance with other whites, particularly Jews.
These people, of which I am one, are unusual among white gentiles in that they generally place an Asian- or Jewish-like emphasis on educational prestige and view the Ivies as the end all and be all of status (as opposed to seeing the sense in taking a full ride to a state honors program).
-Philly Guy
Philly Guy - this "low church" stuff is just cracking me up.
ReplyDeleteBTW - is the Evangelical Presbyterian Church low or high?
Yes, and Presbyterians in general -- please explain why or how they're higher church than Methodists.
Given how deep the fertile urge runs in humans, it takes a lot of obfuscation to justify abortion. Sarah Palin has visibly and demonstrably blown the robotic rhetorical justification ("can't be tied down; a child takes too much away from my life, especially a 'damaged' child"). A tough, happy, productive prominent woman with five beautiful children -- and a portable breast pump -- has to strike to the heart of "why, even if it's murder, I have to get an abortion." Then, it strikes to the heart of the for-a-moment-was-a-mother who is at some level grieving for the children she does not have.
ReplyDeleteLa Palin has ushered the polity into rich archetypal territory.
I am white, but my children are not. (At least not according to the old "one drop" rule!) Thus I have succeeded in propagating my genes while remaining true to my liberal principles. Sometimes you CAN have it both ways!
ReplyDeleteI think we may be reading too much into the Palin selection. McCain chose her because he thought she would appeal to conservatives, with whom he was weak. Democrats are attacking her because, well, that is what politicians do. They attack the opposing party.
ReplyDeleteDemocrats are worried that she will bring in conservative votes for McCain, so they are looking for any angle of attack they can find. It is unlikely that they hate her personally or give a fig about her personal life. Its just politics as usual.
After reading thoughtful comments on the subject elsewhere, I regret using the phrase "knocked up" above. I stand by most of what else I wrote, however.
ReplyDeleteI wrote:
ReplyDelete>>"A lot of Blue Staters do seem to really hate the idea of Red State breeders. This includes traditionalists like Lawrence Auster, condemning Palin for her daughter being pregnant at 17 - by her fiance!!. But what could be more traditional than pregnant at 17, married at 18? Waiting until you're 23 and out of college, or 28and got your Masters, or 35 and got your second job and a mortgage, before breeding is Blue State mores.
Beyond that, some people on the Left seem personally offended at the idea of whites breeding at all. One told me: "I visited Paris - the French are so racist - there were white babies everywhere!""<<
Lawrence Auster has asked me to retract my comment that he hates the idea of Red State breeders. He does not.