American Bastards

Should unwed mothers be disincentivized or thanked? Are they instinctively keeping the species going during a time of what may be transformation or may be decline/collapse? Are they minxes or heroines? (Finally got around to posting this thought now that Instapundit did so.)

Maybe the distinctions on which the above paragraph is based no longer apply completely.

The very fact that the title of this post is jarring says something, though I'm not sure what. The Democrats' Julia shtick says something more clearcut: they want to make hay by abetting a trend which is in all likelihood bad for the country. The danger is that we may have a class of voters who are not just indifferent to, but invested in, the country's decline (the stupidity of Romney's 47% remark notwithstanding).

I'm pretty sure that asking whether men or women are to blame is a false dichotomy.

Addendum 20130602 Apparently China is hard on single parents. The linked piece is by a British former single parent who whines about how hard it was without once considering whether it was a good idea; she ignores or is unaware of Helen Smith's trope that if you subsidize something, you get more of it. Made a bad decision? Blame society!

(Is there a positive correlation between readily available welfare and single motherhood? There is an anecdotal one (destruction of the black family, etc), but I wonder about the rigor.)

Nothing in this Addendum is intended to erase my concerns about false dichotomy.

Ideological Imbalance in Academia

I'm not proposing the following proposal as a definitive policy, but as a starting point for discussion:

No institution of higher learning that receives government funding more than TBD may require politically partisan coursework as a requirement for graduation. If such coursework is required, said funding will be cancelled.

I could propose that no credits toward graduation be granted for partisan coursework, but I am just brimming with tolerance, accommodation, and sweet reason. ;-)

Naive Question about the Bush Tax Cuts

If they were so wonderful, why did federal employment on Bush's watch rise more rapidly than private-sector employment? (See this and this too.)

Another Question

The theocratic Right keeps blabbing that 'America is a Christian nation' blah blah yadda yadda, yet Christianity is not mentioned in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

Yet Lincoln mentioned it in his First Inaugural Address:

Intelligence, patriotism, Christianity, and a firm reliance on Him who has never yet forsaken this favored land are still competent to adjust in the best way all our present difficulty.

So why don't the Hucksters highlight this speech as they seek to rewrite the Constitution to agree with God's law their prejudices?

Ah have no ahdee-uh, suh. None at all.

A Question

Richard Darman wrecked the first Bush administration. Karl Rove's implementation of the so-called Permanent Republican Majority gravely wounded the GOP and if not for Democratic incompetence the damage would be even worse.

Yet Rove's views are taken seriously both in the mainstream and in the GOP whereas Darman became a non-person. Why?

My guess is that Darman wrecked Bush 41 while telling the GOP "base" what they didn't want to hear whereas Rove did comparble (worse, if anything) damage--but did it in a way that catered to theocratic delusions.