This is one of the things that baffles me most about socially conservative/ pro-life republicans: they don't want abortion, they don't want kids to get contraception, but they also don't favor government-funded social welfare programs, environmental programs, universal health care, etc. If two uneducated teens have a baby, that's a huge social cost on society. There's basic welfare, food stamps, etc, plus health care costs, environmental costs of adding another human to the planet, and of course, public education. Of course some of these costs are incurred when anyone has a baby, but it seems like it would be magnified substantially when it's a couple of kids with no education. Sometimes people's social political views are just so contradictory to their economic political views it's amazing.

As the author of this article points out, I also don't get why it's so great that Palin's daughter and her boyfriend are getting married. So now we've got *2* kids who are unlikely to go to college or the career they otherwise might have. Fantastic.

The homeless are also a big drain on the system. Maybe we should round 'em up and gas 'em.

Nice post, Buggie. Inquisitor, not so much.

That's the central tenet of the Conservatives that I cannot wrap my brain around because it's so illogical. It's a, sort of, peripheral arbitration: the whole focus is on others (complete strangers that have no impact on their lives whatsoever) following a set of beliefs, regardless of who ramifications affect, purely to appease themselves. Sickening.

This is a good point, and where some groups are concerned, it's probably on point. But the attitude attributed to all conservatives (the "sickening" one that I guess Davelias12 mentions) is not universal. I'm as conservative as they come: I own & carry guns, I hunt, I don't like being taxed to support others who choose not to work, I believe in self-determination and individualism over society's right to tell me what to do, I despise political correctness and such feel-good approaches to problems, etc. But I have no problem with contraception as a tool to prevent a problem. In fact I believe strongly in population control and I can't think of a better way to start.

Do I have a preference for abstinence outside marriage? Sure, but that's not entirely realistic. And nowadays it's no longer the only option. It's possible to bridge the gap that you seem to see between conservatism and liberalism. (I don't endorse gay marriage or homosexual activity, either, but I won't begrudge you the right to do what you want inside you own home.)

So yeah, it would be great if kids abstained and didn't need to worry about getting pregnant at age 15 or 16 or whatever - but short of that, I'm all for birth control.

lawdog67:

This is a good point, and where some groups are concerned, it's probably on point. But the attitude attributed to all conservatives (the "sickening" one that I guess Davelias12 mentions) is not universal. I'm as conservative as they come: I own & carry guns, I hunt, I don't like being taxed to support others who choose not to work, I believe in self-determination and individualism over society's right to tell me what to do, I despise political correctness and such feel-good approaches to problems, etc. But I have no problem with contraception as a tool to prevent a problem. In fact I believe strongly in population control and I can't think of a better way to start.

Do I have a preference for abstinence outside marriage? Sure, but that's not entirely realistic. And nowadays it's no longer the only option. It's possible to bridge the gap that you seem to see between conservatism and liberalism. (I don't endorse gay marriage or homosexual activity, either, but I won't begrudge you the right to do what you want inside you own home.)

So yeah, it would be great if kids abstained and didn't need to worry about getting pregnant at age 15 or 16 or whatever - but short of that, I'm all for birth control.

Well that's good for you then, but a politician like Palin-or McCain- will blindly stick to ALL the tenants of their party simply to get evangelical and ultra-conservative religious votes. I'm not assuming that ALL republicans feel the same about all issues, but as we've seen with McCain, they will if it means votes. Obviously there are gray areas in politicals for most people, and most people are always going to poised on the left or right of the spectrum- and this is what is GOOD. When people are stuck on one side at all times, it leads to hipocracies such as this.

As a total aside, I was wonder what you meant by a "preference for abstenance outside of marriage." What about adults? Do you believe that 30, 40, 50, 60 year-old people who never get married should never have an adult relationship?

Lets be clear I don't think that the government ought to have a position on whether or not anyone gets contraception or not. It believe it to be outside the governments purview. That being said I believe that an unborn life is still a life and therefore the right to life accrues to it just as it does to me. You, I assume believe that killing another citizen is wrong. What is illogical about my position?

Inquisitor:

Lets be clear I don't think that the government ought to have a position on whether or not anyone gets contraception or not. It believe it to be outside the governments purview. That being said I believe that an unborn life is still a life and therefore the right to life accrues to it just as it does to me. You, I assume believe that killing another citizen is wrong. What is illogical about my position?

Well this is weird because this post is not about why or why not anyone here is pro-choice or "pro-life." But, if you must make the divergence and ask, I think it is illogical because a few cells living in a uterus is not another citizen. I assume you have squashed bugs in your lifetime, or taken a pill to kill bacteria or viruses in your body. Furthermore, is it within the government's purview to make the judgment of whether the life of the unborn is worth more than the life of the woman, as there is more to "life" than just living? Furthermore, I don't believe that the world needs anymore unwanted, unloved, uncared for, resented children, or suffering, oppressed, poor parents. And personally, I just never want to get pregnant. I have nothing against children, and I take every precaution possible to make sure I don't have to use my choice. But, I'm glad I have it.

My point of this post is that the government wants to force people to bring another life into the world, they damn well better be able to pay for it. But people like Palin, who want us all married off and pumping out hundreds of kids, wanted and loved or otherwise, refuse to accept the social cost of doing so.

Buggie, I agree with much of what you say. And I was about to answer your first question to me (quickly: I meant the abstinence-outside-marriage preference in the context of teens or young adults not yet earning a living). But now I have to respond to your last post... if, in fact, anyone's still reading this older thread after the ass-thumping Obama took tonight.

I tried to state this in another post, and I may have done it poorly, so I'll try again: the government doesn't "force people to bring another life into the world." That is, unless you believe in some X-Files-like govenmental conspiracy to abduct women and impregnate them against their will. Many people CHOOSE to engage in an activity that everyone over age twelve knows can very well result in pregnancy.

You may say this is a silly distinction to make, and perhaps I'm on the losing end of this, but I do think there is something to be said for people being accountable for their actions. You don't always get a "do-over" in life. Saying the government "forces people" to have kids is like saying it forces people to burn their houses down, if it decides to cut spending to a fire station near where people sometimes flick matches into pools of gasoline, while instead advocating an end to the match-flicking practice.

Sure, it's a questionable decision - and for the record, you can have some of my tax dollars and spend it on contraceptives for people that TRULY have no other means of obtaining them, so I'm not even disagreeing with you about that - but that is not the same as saying that the government "forced" an outcome to a situation that someone else chose to create. It is high time we stopped ignoring how people got themselves into these jams in the first place. It isn't the government's job to bail people out of all their stupid decisions!! They make the risky choice, and to claim that the government is to blame for the outcome when it won't step in and bail them out is infantile. It's my kids stamping their feet and saying it's "not fair" that I won't help them plagiarize their homework or give them an excuse for school when they stayed up too late and didn't do the work they knew they were supposed to do. COULD I bail them out of their mistake? Sure. Do I want to see them punished or unhappy? No, of course not. But I also see value in people knowing there are consequences to their reckless actions.Whether it's people who refuse to evacuate in spite of a hurricane warning, or people who buy houses they have no business trying to buy through absurd mortgages, or even teens getting pregnant - these are outcomes that people CHOSE to run the risk of.

Not every outcome will be perfect, to be sure, and some people won't learn these lessons no matter how sternly we spell them out to them. But the lessons must still be given.

Buggies I was replying to Davelias which is why I think there was some disconnect. In addition in your first post you say that you see it as illlogical that conservatives don't want social services to be provided by the government and don't want abortion to be legal. I was trying to explain first satirically and then logically why those are not logically conflictual views.

You either don't think that the government should protect all human life or you think that a fetus is not human life. I believe that a fetus is human life and that government should protect all human life. If you apply the law to a fetus just as you would any other citizen it is difficult to imagine a situation in which killing a fetus would be legal. Therefore it doesn't matter what my views might be on any other political subject. I simply think that killing should be illegal and I believe that unborn life deserves the same legal protection as born life. I obviously make the same distinction between human and non-human life as our legal code to come to this conclusion.

I

lawdog67:

tried to state this in another post, and I may have done it poorly, so I'll try again: the government doesn't "force people to bring another life into the world." That is, unless you believe in some X-Files-like govenmental conspiracy to abduct women and impregnate them against their will. Many people CHOOSE to engage in an activity that everyone over age twelve knows can very well result in pregnancy.

Well, ok so perhaps "force" was bad choice of word. However, if abortion is made illegal, it's made illegal for EVERYONE. Married couples, grown, responsible women, people who's birth control happen to fail, women who are raped, people who are incapable of caring for children...it doesn't matter. For some people, it's a consequence of actions, but for other people it's really not. Also, saying that getting pregnant is a consequence of the decision to have sex implies that if you don't want a kid you should not want to have sex. But we all know that that is not how the human body or human society function. Logically, I don't want to have a kid, but physically there is still a need for sex- and relationships. It's somewhat preposterous to assume that all adults have sex because they don't mind the possibility of having a kid. Most people who do, of course, use contraception. But things do go wrong! Should a 40 year-old woman whose birth control fails be forced to "suffer the consequences of her actions?" I just don't buy that because I don't believe she has done anything wrong by having sex. The decision to have sex is separate from the decision to have a baby in the world we live in today. You can do either without the other.

There we disagree. The decision to have sex intrinsically implies the willingness to have a baby unless you think that abortion is okay (as in morally neutral, not should be legal okay). Every method of birth control has some rate of failure. So if you have sex and use that form of birth control you are accepting whatever the percent chance that you might get pregnant. For this reason your examples fall into two completely different groups; people who are raped did not make a choice that directly lead them to get pregnant while all of your other examples did make that choice. So you can say that those people shouldn't have to bear responsibility for their actions. But it IS a consequence of their actions.

so inquisitor, you deny that people can want to (or some people might even argue, need to) have sex even though they don't want children? So everyone who doesn't want children shouldn't be in relationships? If you think that sex and the desire to have children are so linked, then we shouldn't allow people who don't want kids or don't want them at the moment to get married or even date. I'm sorry, I used to see it that way too, but the reality is, one would be hard pressed to find anyone to have a relationship with if they said they couldn't ever have sex on the off chance they might get pregnant. I'd like to see that fly. Basically what you are saying is that the only reason to be in a relationship with another person is because you want to have children- love, attraction, hormones, companionship have nothing to do with relationships. And when it comes down to it, it's really only woman you want to deny the choice to, because men, in reality choose to have sex without the consequence of having children every day. Yet, if one follows your philosphy, women shouldn't be afforded the same freedom.

Here's what baffles me:

So an educated, professional, gay or lesbian couple who a six figure income and owns their own home can't get married or adopt kids but we're ok with two 17 years with little education or job experiencehaving kid and in this case getting married after the fact.

Personally I hope this is the last year the words Republican and Family/Moral Values are used int the same sentence.

Jersey, let me explain the difference. No matter the gay or lesbians' education or income, they will never turn their bizarre home life into anything approaching a normal, healthy relationship. But a 17-year-old boy-girl couple, even relatively uneducated, at least have the CHANCE to grow into one.

Is that less baffling for you? You can disagree with my beliefs on this issue but if you wanted an explanation for how conservatives think about this, there you go.

I agree to be tolerant of others' devaint lifestyles, but don't you dare demand my unconditional acceptance of all of them. Do what you want as adults. Play house all you like. But don't try to imprint some impressionable kids with your twisted view of relationships, okay?

Buggie you are making the argument that you really want to have sex or even need to have sex. You realize that this involves the possibility that you could get pregnant. You are unwilling to accept the responsibilty for that possibility. Therefore you think abortion should be legal. In fact the implication of what you are saying is that abortion is your birth control backstop. I find that appalling because I think that a unborn baby is human and can't be killed just because its parents don't want to take care of it. You obviously disagree although you haven't said why yet (e.i. do you think that a fetus is no a human life or do you think that not all human life should be protected?). I am posting this because this is what you are saying an I think you should look at it. Furthermore men can't keep having sex unless women keep having sex. Unless they have sex with each other in which case there is not much risk of pregnancy.