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Dan Quayle was not even right about the UNCFs well known motto, despite taking TWO stabs at it. Joel Send a noteboard - 19/08/2013 11:45:22 PM

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View original postFor those in that boat there is a good chance it eventually bites them in the rear. The issue is complex and controversial though, for reasons you cite and others.

Feminism as inverse gender-typing covers more ground, too. I tease my wife she will make an excellent little Republican wife, because she frequently complains "liberated" countrywomen react in confusion or outright horror when she says she would love to be a stay-at-home mom were it financially feasible. They just cannot conceive of womens liberation meaning just that: Self-determism, not dragging women kicking and screaming into professional, sometimes even nonmaternal, roles any more than it was right to drag them kicking and screaming into kitchens and bedrooms. The only rational, truly egalitarian, side is they advocate stay-at-home dads no more; all childrearing becomes superfluous at best and a menace at worst.

The sole saving grace is it may be generational: Self-conditioning against bearing and similarly conditioning children suggests its life expectancy is ~75 years.

Another typically neglected aspect of paternal rights is that if they exist at all the question of precisely when a person BECOMES a person is highly pertinent. There again the deck is stacked: Complaints against men impregnating then abandoning women, even COERCING abortion, are common, but if any man dare say, "do NOT murder my child!" suddenly it is exclusively "a womans right to choose." Logically, deciding whether to bear a child once conceived is no more or less any individuals exclusive right than its consequent rearing is their exclusive responsibility. It is manifestly unjust to hold anyone accountable for any decision in which they had no role (i.e. where abortion is legal compulsory child support is taxation without representation.)

Note: That is neither an argument for NOR against either abortion or child support, only for consistency. If we hold men responsible and accountable for their children, with great responsibility comes great power. For my part, I agree we SHOULD hold men responsible for their children, with all pursuant rights and authority. The crux of the problem, of course, is everyone has two parents, so responsibility, rights and authority are jointly shared, making occasional conflicts inevitable. As a society, for good or ill, we generally resolve that conflict by granting gestational parents priority: Her body, her choice, and that really changes little post partum.

I doubt it changes soon either; anyone suggesting it immediately invites many fierce charges of anti-feminist paternalism, ending all rational constructive converse. Men opposed to the birth and consequent support of their children will still be helplessly on the hook if they impregnate a woman who chooses to bear the child. Men convinced their children are just that from conception and therefore opposed to their slaughter will, like the fetus, be entirely at the mercy of the woman impregnated. In both cases most paternal rights asserted will generally be respected or not at her discretion. As long as physically bearing a child remains the exclusive province of women, most every aspect of rearing one will also. Ain't right, just the way it is (with apologies to Bruce Hornsby.)


No ring, no cha-ching. We might be horrified when we read of the treatment of bastards in olden times or in fiction (such as Game of Thrones or Robin Hobb's Farseer books), but as with most common archaic practices that appall our modern sensibilities, there was a reason for that. It has been pretty well established that the best home for a child to grow up in is one with two parents. The best way to ensure that happens is negatively - by discouraging other arrangements, with a lack of social approval and no legal recognition of paternity.

Honestly, Dan Quayle was right about "Murphy Brown".


Santorum is a MUCH better posterboy; at least he is coherent and knows how to spell "potato." Santorum reminds me of Dole in a way: I disagree with him on nearly everything (except where he has broken with the GOP on some social spending,) but at least believe him principled and consistent. That merits at least grudging respect; in the modern political world it merits pure astonishment. On the other hand, he also reminds me of Doles greatest nemesis in a way: I would sit down for bridge with Bush, might even enjoy him as a partner—I just do not want him within 1000 miles of my government.

To the larger point, shotgun (or lance-point) marriages are long out of fashion, too, and never worked anyway for serving wenches nobles raped. Though any noble particularly paranoid about it could always invoke droit du seigneur, right? The "good old days" were often not as good as nostalgia (especially by those with no first or even secondhand experience) affirms. Swings and roundabouts, at best, and likely not even that; humans are fallen and carnal, but enlightened self interest ensures that, as a group, we tend to preserve the good and alter the bad rather than the reverse.

Your logic implies one of the most deeply unfair predatory conceits of the old days: Pregnancy proves sex was consensual. Quayle is as dumb as a sack of hammers, but has more integrity than to spout that insulting lie; leave it to mendacious human filth like Akin and "my philosophical heroes are Aquinas and Rand" Ryan.

Pregnancy does not prove sex consensual; single motherhood does not prove marriage rejected. In a world with abortion bans without rape exceptions, single motherhood would FREQUENTLY have little do with a womans desire for sex OR a husband—yet still be solely her responsibility, not any of the people who forced her to bear the child. Upside: The ones who died in childbirth would be spared that responsibility; since that would mean NO ONE was responsible for rearing it we could only hope their child died with them (but at least not by abortion.) There is that nagging Eighth Amendment again....

C'mon, Cannoli. Your mind is too vigorous and rigorous to buy into this twaddle; advocating positions and "logic" beneath you demeans yourself.

Honorbound and honored to be Bonded to Mahtaliel Sedai
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Still in Congress (though no longer on his FB page) after all these years
This message last edited by Joel on 20/08/2013 at 12:00:24 AM
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