It would be easy for me to crow and state that the Times story is further evidence that many red staters in general are nothing but a bunch of provincial, uneducated misanthropes with a gene pool hopelessly polluted with their own DNA, a passing familiarity with conjugal discretion beyond the age of about 14, and a blind allegiance to any Republican politician who isn’t actually robbing them at gunpoint.
But it would be wrong for me to say that, so I won’t (besides, I was almost run off the road today by an idiot with a New York license plate driving a black Hummer…blue staters obviously aren’t perfect either).
Seriously, no one has the moral high ground in this area. We all face the same struggle to protect our kids and raise them as best as we can.
Well, since the Times story does deal with this whole “red state/blue state” schism that we may be destined to live with for quite awhile yet, I instinctively thought of the one person who benefited most from this division, and that would be none other than President Stupid Head himself.
I went back and checked to see how Dubya sold himself as “the moral values president” last year when running against John Kerry, and as I read this exercise in “buzzword bingo” from his campaign literature, I find it more and more unbelievable that he was actually returned to office (again, as always, discounting the likelihood of fraud in Ohio and Florida…apparently, J.D. Mullane wrote some column today in the Courier Times with a headline that wondered if last year’s election was stolen, but I didn’t read a word of it on purpose).
Here were Candidate Bush’s positions, as it were, last year:
George W. Bush on Families and AbstinenceThe “2.3 billion for adoption and child welfare” was little more than an exercise in dark humor as far as I’m concerned, seeing as how we burn through that in Iraq in about half a day. The rest of it is a typical “bait and switch” exercise of P.R. and empty promises (and yes, abstinence is a good thing, but not at the expense of educating our kids about birth control just in case).
Families
- Defend the institution of marriage against activist judges. (Jan 2004)
- New relief plans focus on the American family. (Aug 2003)
- Tax cut plan helps single people as well as families. (Nov 2000)
- Internet filters, ratings, & parental monitoring for kids. (Oct 2000)
- Paying taxes hurts family time for middle class. (Sep 2000)
- Blueprint: Focus on community; adoption; fatherhood; safety. (Sep 2000)
- Safety at school & home: Project Sentry & Project ChildSafe. (Sep 2000)
- Teach our children the values that defeat violence. (Aug 2000)
- Fathers’ registry will promote involvement, responsibility. (Jul 2000)
- $75M to support veterans to mentor youth. (Jul 2000)
- $2.3 billion over 5 years for adoption & child welfare. (Jul 2000)
- Parental accountability is more important than trigger locks. (Mar 2000)
- Leave no child behind, via improving schools & health care. (Jan 2000)
- More daycare funds; caseworkers; “Second Chance” homes. (Jun 1999)
- V-chip OK, but cultural changes are better. (May 1999)
Filter - or avoid - media that romanticizes violence. (Apr 1999)
Enforce child protection and child support. (Jan 1999)
Abstinence
- Double funding for abstinence to prevent STDs. (Jan 2004)
- Promote abstinence in schools and via churches. (Apr 2000)
- Abstinence Ed should get funded as much as Sex Ed. (Jun 1999)
- Appropriate to draw a moral line for children. (Jun 1999)
- Teach kids right (abstinence) and wrong (drugs & gangs). (Apr 1998)
Ah, but “the dear leader” does give us something for the kids (and click here to find out what it is).
Isn’t that cute? It’s a Presidential Prayer web site! Praise God and all the standard Repug luminaries (and President Reagan returns from the dead to preach to us about “character” in people who eat jellybeans). As you can see, there are a lot of primary colors, smiling faces, and cutesy profiles of John Snow while he’s busy raiding our defined contribution 401(k) plans and Gale Norton as she’s granting approval to allow strip mining for coal at Mount Zion (just kidding…I hope; sorry, I forgot – Snow and Norton were in last week’s issue).
Believe me when I tell you that way up on my “To Do” list is a task called “Write to Specter and Fitzpatrick and tell them I don’t want ONE DIME of my tax dollars being used to pay for this stuff” (and I’m not even going to waste my time with Scumbag Santorum – this site could have been his idea).
Of course I believe in God and I think religion is a good thing. I would feel insulted if someone asked me that personally. But this administration simply doesn’t get the concept (or refuses to acknowledge same) that SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY THIS COUNTRY EXISTS.
Well, at least we can turn to Public Television for programming that is reasonably unfiltered by Bushco (or at least we could, anyway).
So, here again then is Molly Ivins to explain the true net effect of Bushco’s treatment of our kids (and yes, I know her column is dated from last February, but if you can prove to me that anything has seriously changed since then, I'll remove this entire paragraph and note it accordingly).
If you by any chance live in a red state and know a teenage girl out there who could benefit from some of this information (or even a blue state – when it comes to public health issues, the “color” of the state is irrelevant), please persuade them to read some of this before they become a statistic. All “smoke and mirrors” aside, we know what this administration thinks of families (really, anyone who isn’t just like them). It’s up to us to educate ourselves on this stuff, since we obviously can’t count on this government to do it.
Update 10/21: Here is more on this from a recognized expert in the field:-).
Update 10/24: Speaking of kids (and a certain book/movie/stage play), pay no attention to the clueless moron in the motorcade...
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