Angel Heart, dear, the most common sense response to that (if the woman really doesn’t want to have a child and there is a possibility for pregnancy) is “Sorry (insert male name,) but you’ve got to. I won’t let you touch me that way until you put on a condom.” The woman is in control, and no amout of “But it doesn’t feel as good” or “But I don’t like them” would really steer them away from demanding their male companion wear one.
Oh yeah , there’s lots of people who think that eating liver makes women pregnant. No culture in the world can claim they didn’t know what causes babies. " It is because we screwed ??? Wow, I’d have never guessed!"
If Mr X and Mrs Y eat one meal a week , how can splitting that meal 3 ways instead of 2 be considered a good idea ? Yep , everyone has the right to screw each others brains out , but when they want to dip into MY pocket to feed their offspring, I have a problem with it. People sometimes fall on hard times and need help and i have not one problem with that and I’ll help out in a heartbeat. But when baby factories keep pumping out units with no means of being self sufficient, something needs to be done. Welfare should be a last resort, not the first. I’d propose putting a time limit on assistance (welfare,food stamps, subsidized housing) If you can’t get your shit together in two years of society footing the bill, then the hell with you. Call private charities. Personal responsibility, I feel, is at an all time low in the US. Too many people want to play victim or expect the rest of us to bail them out of some pile of shit they got themselves into. If Mrs Y knows that ‘her check’ won’t be coming anymore, maybe instead of making sure her nails are done she’ll actually put her mind to how she’ll eat when we’re not filling her plate, and how much easier it’d be if she held off on having her second dozen kids.
Just as an aside, I wonder if anyone else has noticed this too. When I’m in the checkout line at the grocery store and i notice somebody paying for food with food stamps, more often times than not, these people are fuckin huge ! If you can’t afford to feed yourself, how the hell did you get so damned fat ? Are the pets in your neighborhood disappearing ??? Hmmm I haven’t seen Old Mr Johnson in a while …
PS. On that last thing, please don’t give me that shit about gland problems or slow metabolisms. If you don’t eat excessive calories, you won’t get big. Unless you can show me a gland that can transform air into fat, i don’t want to hear it.
Cheap food is high in calories and low in nutrition. If you can only afford ramen and mac-n-cheese (4 or 5 meals for a dollar), you won’t have a hard time getting fat, but you will have a hard time staying healthy.
That’s because this page gives an excellent summary of the history of the Republican Party’s transformation into the party of racism. It didn’t happen overnight, it was the product of a series of events and decisions by Republican leaders. You wanted a demonstration of how it happened, there it is.
They also mention Bush Sr. in 1988 with some ad campaign that was supposably racist but don’t mention any specifics.
Not all that relevant.
If the republican party is the party of racism then why are they having cordial and productive meetings with the head of the NAACP to discuss racial harmony? The 1960’s racism that the article talks about was mirrored by the democrats. Indeed, Strom Thurmond it even admits was a democratic senator when he was a segregationalist. When he switched parties to become a republican he lost his racist ways.
Yes, through the 1950s it was the Democrats who stood for racism. You’re right about that. The Southern Strategy was a Republican response to the Dems losing all those racist votes when they supported the Civil Rights movement back in the 60s.
Again, even the most biased liberal sources like these weblog links that Evil has come up with admit that the Democrats were openly and clearly racist 50 years ago. Somehow, however, it is allways worse that the republicans were secretly racists (according to the accusers) 40 years ago.
The problem isn’t that the Repubs were racists 40 years ago. It’s that they STARTED supporting racism 40 years ago and have continued to do so to this day.
**Forced busing was a bad idea.
Welfare abuse was a serious problem that the republicans tried to fix for decades. It was actually Bill Clinton who finally saw some success with stopping the abuse.
Quotas are racist, unfair, and a bad idea.
Being against forced busing, welfare fraud, and racial quotas does not make one a racist.**
Not automatically, but it’s an indicator that you might be one. You might oppose each and every one of them for what seem to you to be sound, logical reasons while having every desire to see all races treated equally in the U.S., but they all JUST HAPPEN to be notions that also appeal to racists because they are perceived as being “against niggers” by racists. Supporters of the Repub Party position on various civil right issues are confronted with having to come up with logical or technical flaws in laws relating to civil rights issues, which the Repub Party almost uniformly opposes. In short, the Repub Party has to keep saying, "We’re not racist, we oppose this legislation because it’s inefficient/unconstitutional/ill-conceived. Some civil rights legislation undoubtedly was ill-inconceived but some of it was brilliantly conceived.
Still no proof offered, though.
Oh, please. Your standards for proof on this issue are so high that it will clearly NEVER be proved to anything like your satisfaction.
**Is there a memo or letter where Nixon tells other Republicans to lace speeches with appeals to racists? **
See what I mean? A covert appeal to racism is unlikely to backed up with written documents or even public speech supporting it. That’s what “covert” means. But you can look at Repub actions and speech and clearly see the racism inherent in it.
Even if this is true, so what? The Democrats in the south were openly racist 50 years ago. Why is it worse that the republicans were supposably secretly racists 40 years ago?
The difference is, the Dems turned their official policy away from racism 50 years ago, while the Repubs picked it up, and have kept it to this day. Remember, it’s all about the votes. The Dems dropped their appeals to racist voters, the Repubs picked them up.
**Again this article somehow makes the leap that “states rights” equals racism. **
Appeal to “state’s rights” have frequently been used as cover for advancing racist agendas and ideas. The “state’s rights” appeal began back in the 50s when Democrats used it as a defense agaisnt federal rules designed to end the Jim Crow laws. The Repubs picked up this tattered and shabby banner in the 70s when the federal civil rights legislation came into conflict with state laws promoting segregation.
There is a fundamental conflict between states and the feds inherent in our government, so it’s use doesn’t automatically equate with reacism, but there’s no denying that “state’s rights” has been historically used for racist purposes at times.
I think I’ve said about as much on this issue as needs to be said. Feel free to continue your denials and hand-waving.
Actually, I had this mental picture of groups of people running around in tiny herds being racist. It was pretty funny.
PS This is the Pit, you’re supposed to call people names here!
On a serious note, how about this:
In some isolated circumstance (the proverbial island? someplace with no existing welfare system) The person next door has a kid. Can’t support that kid. What do you do?
a) Say it’s not your problem and leave the kid to starve
b) Take care of the kid, whose fault it certainly is not
c) Take care of the kid but force the person to work, somehow
d) Forcibly sterilize the person so it won’t happen again
e) Other
Now generalize to society. Discuss.
I agree on the personal responsibility issue, the problem is: How do we encourage people to take responsibility for their actions?
NoCoolUserName, (which is, in fact, a rather cool user name :p)
I’d go with option E: zappy dog collars. You know, like the ones you use on dogs who leave the perimiter of a yard or who bark with it on? Yep, zappy collars. Make it look like the 24 karat gold chains that you see some ‘stylin’ folks wearing (you know, the ‘bling-bling’?) Or, line it into a hemp necklace for our neo-hippy brethren. Every time you want to fuck without a condom and your earning potential is under such and such an amount, ZAP! Fifty thousand fucking volts right through the neck. Just like a Tazer ™! That’ll put you out of the mood real quick.
This is just bullshit. If the republicans are supporting racism and it’s so obvious, then why can’t you give a single example of it in modern times?
Where? When? WTF are you talking about?
It’s comical how you can post hundreds of words laying on the accusations without actually accusing them of anything. The lack of content and amount of accusations make your posts absurd.
You have said nothing. There is nothing even to deny. You have failed to make a case at all that the republican party appeals to racists. You have made wild claims and accusations and not even attempted to back them up.
Meanwhile my charge in response is very clear. I have noted you ignoring it. If any political party is guilty of racism it is the democrats. Their support of racial quotas for college admission and hiring practices is racism. Pure and simple.
The thing that gets me is all this bullshit fighting over where [6%](http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/fy2000/guide02.html#Table 2-2) of the federal budget goes.
Ok, I’ll chime in here, as a recent “welfare mom.” I chose (yes, with much thought and pre-meditation) to become a single mother, at 30. I had a decent job with good medical benefits when I made that choice. Then I lost my job, and for 18 months, I simply could not find another. My 2 BAs and post-grad work didn’t help, for whatever reasons, and my baby was hungry. So I applied for food stamps, and welfare, and all that.
Let me tell y’all, it SUCKS. It’s freaking humiliating, for starters, and I spent more than 30 hours in just one week sitting in the smelliest waiting room EVER to grovel for a couple hundred bucks a month. Y’all think it’s some cushy living? I dispute that, by the nature of the beast. It’s a red-tape nightmare. I kept telling myself, “I do NOT belong here. I am NOT this sort of person.” Know what? Lots of people (including some of y’all) are only a paycheck or two away from being that desperate. Hungry baby means you do what you have to do, even lowering oneself to welfare. Charity does hurt, when you’re so pathetic that you’re the one receiving it. All I ever asked for (and received) was one month’s worth of food stamps (about $250), and let me tell you, that STUNG.
Just for the record, I’m (or used to be) a privileged upper-middle-class white woman. And my guess is that about 70% of the other folks at the public aid office were African-American, with the majority being families (2 parents with an infant). I saw about two single mothers there, and another two moms with more than one kid. And I’m talking about the Public Aid office on the southside of Chicago, which my new Chicago friends tell me is the “ghetto.” Just my experience, though. I stuck out like a sore thumb, and was treated likea freak.
Also FTR, I’m celibate by choice now. Can’t afford birth control, so I’m keeping my knees together. I do, however, vehemently defend my right to spread my knees as much as I want. After all, they’re mine. I can do whatever I want. I am a tax-paying adult, after all. Have been, for more than 10 years.
Now does anyone want to discuss social responsibility? I have a full-time job now, and my medical benefits kick in January 1st, and I’ll be happy to toss my tax $ to social welfare programs. Let’s get some subsidized child-care programs going so that single parents (yes, not just single mothers) have more options…
Repubs, Demos… whatever. Neither party has done anything noticeable in my lifetime. Pfft. Trying to pull the thread back on track, though…
Ugh. Of all the threads to bring from the dead. Why this one?
Back from the dead to show how this world is just chock full of selfish people.
Selfish, self-centered, I-got-mine-fuck-you-if-you-ain’t-got-yours, holier-than-thou, self-righteous and, in some cases, banned people.
Have you paid it back yet?
Zing!
Rhum quit being a dick.
The woman said she’s working full time now. She has probably paid back that 250 and then some. If not, she certainly will as time goes on.
It’s selfish to say that people need to be responsible for themselves and their behavior because other people shouldn’t have to pay for their poor choices?
Yes, we’ve thrown in the strawmen:
- The ignorant: adults who are unaware of how babies are made or what contraceptives are or how they work
- The rural poor: who somehow can find everything else they need in the world but not birth control but are nevertheless incapable of abstaining for the one week of the month necessary to avoid conception
- The unfortunate: women whose husbands left/got thrown in jail/absconded with the money and the leggy blonde secretary, leaving them in poverty or the single mothers who unexpectedly lost their jobs.
- The religious: people whose choice of faith prevents them from using non-natural means of preventing pregnancy.
- The statistical anomalies: The women who took Bactrim with the Pill and conceived or the couples whose condoms broke.
But they aren’t the ones whose behavior is being criticized.
(True) accidents happen. No one has said otherwise. Things happen in life for which we are unprepared, contingencies come about that throw all of our plans into the trash and leave us scrambling. No one has ever said that such people were taking advantage of anyone or were misusing the system or were not entitled to some assistance while they got themselves together.
You know it as well as I know it. The people who are being decried are the people who are not giving a damn, who have no means to support a child, and are recklessly or intentionally having them anyway – when they have options available to them that they are failing to use or simply reject – leaving the rest of us obligated to provide support for that child over the long term.
It’s a very frightening definition of the word to call it selfishness to say “you shouldn’t make that really damned dumb, bad choice because I’m the one who is going to pay for it (literally) and I don’t want to do that.”
Yeah, it’s pretty selfish to want to deny children basic neccesities because you think their parents are dumb just as it is pretty selfish to bring a child into the world that you have no means of caring for.
Still, it’s a much more self-centered rightousness that drives the impulse to deny needy families 5 stinking years (that’s all you get these days) of welfare-- which amounts to-- what-- even less than 6% of our national budget. From the chart linked to above
So cry me a I-got-mine-fuck-you-if-you-ain’t-got-yours river.
I would just like to say, when I saw the title of this thread All those Illegitimate Breeding Machines I thought this would be about puppy mills. I never even thought the phrase could apply to humans.
That’s all. 
Since this thread is back from the dead, I’d like to voice a pet peeve about the whole Murphy Brown business. You see, I was a fan of the show at the time. Here’s how Ms. Brown wound up an unwed mother.
She was dating her ex-husband who was proposing to her on a regular basis. She kept turning down his proposals because she knew that if they remarried, it would not be a good one. Yes, she was having sex with him, and I don’t know what contraception she was using. I do remember that since she was well over 40, she figured the odds of getting were pretty slim to begin with. Like some other women on this board, she found out contraception was not 100% effective the hard way. When she found out she was pregnant, she accepted her ex-husband’s proposals of marriage. He was the one who immediately decided he didn’t want to be a father and took off for parts unknown.
This struck me then and now as a fine example of the hypocrisy of the “family values” crowd. If the character had had an abortion, that would have been horrendously immoral. If she had married her ex, that wouldn’t have been a problem. In my opinion, she did act responsibly by using contraception and, on finding out it failed, trying to do the best she could for her child by marrying the father. As I suspect happens all too often, the father of the child took off and only the mother is branded as irresponsible, in this case, nationwide. :rolleyes: Oh yes, if I recall, what prompted this storyline was not the media’s desire to rub their liberalness in the face of conservatives, but the fact that Candice Bergen had become pregnant by her husband. It was either acknowledge the pregnancy on the show or have her stand behind furniture for a season.
Here endeth the pet peeve.
CJ