Stop having kids ... just fucking stop

[Seattle Zack]

I was feeling very jaundiced and snide when I made my post here--the one where I was accused of dragging politics into the discussion. But face it, peeps, discussion of social issues like this always lead to politics of one kind or another.

I really have noticed this phenomenon in my part of the world--sleek, cornfed, affluent couples that feel it is their Christian duty to round out their family to four kids. It takes some getting used to, for me; I mean, I grew up in the age of ZPG and feminism. Having only one or two kids was a sign of enlightenment. We were worried about bringing kids into "a world like this"--and women certainly had a harder time realizing their potential if they were getting pregnant four times.

The modern young couples with their fourth kid in the oven seem to have a rather illiberal outlook on life; they don't have much connection, and therefore, not much sympathy, for the improverished, the women who get pregnant unintentionally, or even the ones who find themselves beating a path down to the pharmacy to get Plan B.

And if they're all having four kids or more--and mind you, I'm not talking about people who have trouble handling the financial sacrifices involved in raising a family--you know what that means.

There are going to be more of them than there are of us.

Struck a chord, Tony, living up here in the land of millionaires that I do. I've seen these mothers -- most of them bimbotoxes by now -- liberal arts majors, married some Microsoft guy back in '87. Now they have four kids (on their seven year plan). Little Joey is in soccer now. Annie wants so play softball, now, so that's an extra three trips a week in the minivan. Ugh.

But you think there will be more of them? Christ, old Marie (whom I wrote about earlier) dropped two and still has five left. Another sparkling example of humanity that lives two blocks from where I work, Vili Fulaau (who was raped by Mary Kay Latourneau and subsequently fathered two of her children -- one while she was in prison) is the sixth of twelve children. And he has two of his own now, at 18 or so.

And he's unemployed. And, now that Mary Kay (who already has four children, because she was married when she raped this 12-year old boy) is out of prison, they plan to get married. And, you guessed it, have more kids.

 

[Guest]

Well, I notice the PC crowd is already saddlin' up, so before I abandon this thread to the AH clique wasteland of invictive pedagoguery let me mention....

The "breeder cows" as I refer to them are these single mothers that continue to have children ... and damn the consequences.

Not the women that were married and tragically widowed. Not those who were raped as a child and now have to deal with the consequences as a result.

How many kids is enough? People don't choose poverty, as Perdita pointed out, but women decide whether or not to have children. And single women in poverty ... have as many as you fucking want -- five children is an appropriate choice? Six? Seven? With those children come an enormous societal cost.

Of course I don't protest other "grevious spending" of my tax dollars as vehemently as this. I would rather more of my tax dollars went to higher education, which is woefully underfunded (in my childless opinion). I would support universal healthcare for children, rather than tax breaks for billionaires. Don't get me started. I'd prefer that the kids we have on this planet already get a chance at a real career, than encouraging more kids that we can't pay for.

Wow. I've never been accused of being part of the PC crowd.

Will I have to change political parties?

 

[cloudy]

Wow, I've never been accused of being PC before.

Funny, because I object to Zack's hate-filled invective, I'm PC???

Whatever.

Zack, I can understand your frustration. There are some horrible parents out there. That said, poverty does not make someone a bad parent.

Get off your high horse, just for a minute, and realize just how angry you are at a whole group of people, and how you are stereotyping them. It sucks, and I'm sorry you choose to rant instead of discuss.

 

[Guest]

Wow, I've never been accused of being PC before. . .

Ya wanna be PC together?

On the other hand, being incorrect is a lot more fun!

 

[cloudy]

Ya wanna be PC together?

On the other hand, being incorrect is a lot more fun!

I agree. Shall we?

 

[Guest]

I agree. Shall we?

Yum. Of course!


Well, I do need to finish cookin' a turkey first. How about after the pumpkin pie and whipped cream?

 

[Lisa Denton]

Lisa sticks her head up in the thread wonderin if its safe, she sees Cloudy and sweetsubsarahh and says HI then runs away really fast before the mean foul mouthed assholes come back.

 

[Guest]

 

[Lisa Denton]

Are we talkin in code?

 

[Guest]

Are we talkin in code?

Yep.

Tough to do otherwise with the ball gag in my mouth.

http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/zensiert/27.gif


Happy Thanksgiving, baby!

 

[Lisa Denton]

Yep.

Tough to do otherwise with the ball gag in my mouth.

http://www.addis-welt.de/smilie/smilie/zensiert/27.gif


Happy Thanksgiving, baby!

Ooooh, a ball gag!!! I wanna bast you.

If we hi-jack this thread are we gonna get slammed?

 

[Guest]

Ooooh, a ball gag!!! I wanna bast you.

If we hi-jack this thread are we gonna get slammed?

Welllll, we already hijacked it. And thank God, by the way. So many evil thoughts.

As for getting slammed? That's already happened, too.

So what else can we do?

 

[Lisa Denton]

Welllll, we already hijacked it. And thank God, by the way. So many evil thoughts.

As for getting slammed? That's already happened, too.

So what else can we do?

Uh, well, see, I haven't been slammed this mornin.

 

[Guest]

Uh, well, see, I haven't been slammed this mornin.

How else can you have a happy day?

(Of course, this brings to mind lots of jokes about getting stuffed, getting covered with warm gravy, buttering your buns, etc. But I'm not going to mention those today.)

 

[Lisa Denton]

How else can you have a happy day?

(Of course, this brings to mind lots of jokes about getting stuffed, getting covered with warm gravy, buttering your buns, etc. But I'm not going to mention those today.)

I am having a happy day, I even posted on a Amicus thread, he was nice (wierd) and I am feeling slightly fun and naughty about turnin this hate-filled ranting thread around.

Spank me, I'm bad.

 

[Guest]

I am having a happy day, I even posted on a Amicus thread, he was nice (wierd) and I am feeling slightly fun and naughty about turnin this hate-filled ranting thread around.

Spank me, I'm bad.

OK.

 

[Fag-Ash_Lil]

Someone whispered in my ear (and gave me some ciggies) to say this thread needed a good hijacking.

So ere I is.

Got any ciggies? A girl can never ave enuff. Enuff what? I got enuff ciggies but I always want more. If I'm short I can always flash me knickers or I wood if I wore em.

Fag-Ash

 

[Lisa Denton]

Someone whispered in my ear (and gave me some ciggies) to say this thread needed a good hijacking.

So ere I is.

Got any ciggies? A girl can never ave enuff. Enuff what? I got enuff ciggies but I always want more. If I'm short I can always flash me knickers or I wood if I wore em.

Fag-Ash

Smoke em if ya got em, Happy Turkey Day!!!!!!

 

[Guest]

Someone whispered in my ear (and gave me some ciggies) to say this thread needed a good hijacking.

So ere I is.

Got any ciggies? A girl can never ave enuff. Enuff what? I got enuff ciggies but I always want more. If I'm short I can always flash me knickers or I wood if I wore em.

Fag-Ash

Hello Lil - glad you stopped by!

(I'm not wearing any panties either.)

 

[oggbashan]

Hello Lil - glad you stopped by!

(I'm not wearing any panties either.)

Lil advised me that you share her passion for cool breezes. I had to bribe her with ciggies to find out which thread she meant.

Her last pair of knickers are adorning the equestrian statue of a former Mayor. They don't suit him.

Og

PS. If you see Fag-Ash, keep quiet about it. Her keepers are scouring the town looking for her. She doesn't think it's fair if they catch her in the first hour.

 

[scheherazade_79]

As noted above - it's not your opinions. It's your language.

But if a rose were known by any other name, would it not smell as sweet?

What I'm trying to say is that I find it so typically and tiringly '21st century' that people pay more attention to the terminology than the message. It all boils down to political correctness and doublespeak.

When you start prohibiting or discouraging the use of certain words / phrases, then our language is all the poorer for it. We either have freedom of speech, or we don't have it. It's as simple as that. Or at least it should be.

But therein lies the rub. We live in an age where language is manipulated - where we're encouraged to use dull euphemisms to mask the truth and indulge in stock (and rather meaningless) buzz phrases, such as "Weapons of Mass Destruction", our "fight for freedom" (which happens to be stripping away our civil liberties by the day) and "hate-filled language" (which is usually a euphemism for anything that the authorities disagree with.

We're all literate adults. We're all capable of defending our creeds and opinions and beliefs along with the very best of them. It's not as though Seattle Zack chose to have a go at a group of defenceless old ladies or illiterate children from Outer Mongolia.

In our climate, politically correct or not, I bloody admire anyone who has the guts to express themselves openly - regardless of whether I agree with them or not.

And if someone doesn't agree, then they too have the right to stand up and bite back - which is what people have been doing anyway, so I really don't see what the big deal is about a couple of offensive words.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Actually, the very reasons you cite are precisely why Zack's posting deserves to be treated with distaste. What would dim and dull the language and its vitality would be to pretend that there is no difference between the language of discussion and the language of assault, or to suggest that the emotional and social connotations of words are not part of the argument conveyed. That would indeed lead to a dull, meaningless language in which "breeder cow" and "mother" were presented as having precisely the same meaning. Ignoring the connotative meanings of words makes the language poorer, not richer, and that is what you are suggesting we do if we are to treat Zack's argument as equivalent to one couched in more civil language. I don't deny Zack the right to express himself that way or to use those words - I only reserve the right to take his words at their value and recognize that as he has chosen to express himself differently, he is in fact saying something different. To do otherwise is indeed to erase meaning from the English language.

It all boils down to political correctness and doublespeak.

Interesting that you should bring Mr. Orwell's book into this via his term - "doublespeak." It intrigues me because Orwell seems to me quite clearly, in "1984," to be using precisely Zack's sort of hate-filled, inherently relatively meaningless invective as an example of the dangers of degnerative discourse. As he shows throughout the novel, it's a shorthand way to appealing to the audience's emotions and knee-jerk reactions while discouraging thought and substantative discourse. When all public discourse is carried on in this tone, we will indeed have reached the state of the "two minutes' hate" depicted in the novel.

"Political correctness" is inapplicable here. Once more, I'm not discussing Zack's politics, which are really quite commonplace and unexceptionable. In fact, it appears to me to be the paucity of his ideas that drives him to this type of discourse. When one examines what he's essentially saying, it's quite simple and not terribly exciting, nor even likely to spur any real objections unless he chooses to wrap it in offensive language. It is in fact this disconnect between thought and langauge that Orwell most levelled his lance at.

"Doublespeak," in "1984," referred to the ability to say and believe two contradictory things at the same time. I don't actually see any of that going on here, so I won't say any more on that subject.

What I'm trying to say is that I find it so typically and tiringly '21st century' that people pay more attention to the terminology than the message.

Actually, it's quite a novel 20th century idea that things ought to operate in any other way. Historically, back to Socrates at least, concern over what words and terms meant and how they were used was considered an essential part of argumentation - the heart of it, some would say. In fact it's not clear to me how one can seperate terminology from message, as the message is composed of the terms in which it is conveyed. To suggest that we ignore the meaning of those words is in fact to take us back to that bland language that Orwell envisions and you invoke in your reference to his book - where everything simply means "good," "plus good," or "double plus good," and all other connotations and meanings are erased.

In our climate, politically correct or not, I bloody admire anyone who has the guts to express themselves openly - regardless of whether I agree with them or not.

I agree entirely. I simply don't believe that "openly" and "rudely" are interchangeable terms, or that wording one's argument's crudely is a sign of the strength of one's convictions. Quite the opposite, really. When one uses hateful language, one immmediately turns away all readers who tend to disagree with one. This means that this sort of vitriol is really only read by those who already agree. People who believe in their opinions and desire to have them heard show the discipline necessary to appeal to the most vital group - those who do not already agree with them. When someone launches into the sort of language Zack uses, even those who agree with his basic premise - like me - are repulsed and likely not to consider his ideas carefully. What purpose does such discourse serve? It achieves nothing.

Shanglan

 

[SlickTony]

Struck a chord, Tony, living up here in the land of millionaires that I do. I've seen these mothers -- most of them bimbotoxes by now -- liberal arts majors, married some Microsoft guy back in '87. Now they have four kids (on their seven year plan). Little Joey is in soccer now. Annie wants so play softball, now, so that's an extra three trips a week in the minivan. Ugh....

But you think there will be more of them? Christ, old Marie (whom I wrote about earlier) dropped two and still has five left. Another sparkling example of humanity that lives two blocks from where I work, Vili Fulaau (who was raped by Mary Kay Latourneau and subsequently fathered two of her children -- one while she was in prison) is the sixth of twelve children. And he has two of his own now, at 18 or so.

You got what I was driving at, SZ; good for you. It doesn't matter if the offspring of the cornfed conservative types are fewer than that of Marie and the Fulaau-Latourneau mess--the former are the ones who will drink the Mor'l Values Koolaid and go to the polls and vote. The life-at-the-bottom poor tend to be apolitical or avoid voting, feeling that they are not going to make any difference.

 

[rgraham666]

It's been my experience that those who complain loudest about 'political correctness' are usually complaining about the fact that it isn't their sort of 'political correctness'.

If Zack's original post had been less angry and had used a pistol instead of a flamethrower (to use a weak analogy) I would have been more inclined to listen to him.

There are all kinds of problems with people having children who shouldn't. Those problems are not limited to those at the lower end of the economic spectrum.

But an invective filled rant isn't going to accomplish much in fixing these problems.

 

[oggbashan]

Orwell's 1984

Orwell was going to call his book 1948 but was advised to set it in the distant future.

One of the things he was attacking was the propaganda and dirty tricks produced in the UK during the war to counteract those of Nazi Germany. His contention was that we had sunk to the level of the enemy by using the same weapons and therefore we were indistinguishable. We had become the enemy and nothing was too horrific for us to use. Language had become a tool for concealing the truth and emotive language a means of control.

How far Orwell's message influenced people is uncertain. It was a wake-up call that some heeded.

Og