Saturday, June 17, 2006

The Democratic Culture of Conniption and the Devaluation of Fatherhood

Hysterical liberals are always having a conniption fit about something. Why aren't they having one about that most odious of illiberal holidays, Father’s Day? Why haven’t they banned this insensitive celebration of white male patriarchal values yet? Instead of going after Christmas or Columbus Day, it seems to me that they would be better served to make a frontal assault on the source of all the trouble: fathers, those individual embodiments of Male Privilege.

After all, it’s not as if these groups don’t try to hide their contempt for fatherhood. According to an analysis by one of the most influential liberal feel-tanks, N.O.W., "Underneath the facade of Christian religion are the workings of the radical religious right, mobilizing men against the rights of women, lesbians, and gays."

As we have had occasion to note before, contemporary left-liberalism is overwhelmingly a movement of unhinged or unbalanced (i.e., divorced from healthy male energy) female energy in various forms. Bear in mind that I’m not talking about all liberals. There are obviously some sane ones left, such as Joe Lieberman. It is surely no coincidence that he is the one person they are trying to purge from the party--not knaves such as Al Sharpton and William Jefferson, lunatics such as Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy, or unalloyed simpletons such as Barbara Boxer and Harry Reid.

Nevertheless, if you consider the primary constituents of the Democratic Party, you immediately realize that they could not be a functioning party without all of their dysfunction. Let’s just consider the black vote. "Job one" of the Democratic Party and their marketing arm--the brick-and-mortar spin machine known as the MSM--is to foment racial hatred and division. This is because the Democrats would no longer be a viable party in something like 26 states without 90 percent of the black vote. While there is rough parity between the parties, blacks represent only 12 percent of the population, but something like 20-25% of the Democratic base. Therefore, it is necessary to cynically keep them angry, riled up, persecuted, and, most of all, victimized.

If you could snap your fingers and and make one change that would instantly transform black culture, what would it be? More quotas? A new government program? More black faces on TV? More black coaches in the NFL? More sensitivity to Cynthia McKinney's changing hairstyles? No, of course not. Any right-minded person knows that you would wish for more fathers.

Liberalism is full of beautiful ideas that do not work. One of their most beautiful ideas (to them, anyway) is that there is no fundamental difference between the sexes. From this flows many equally loony secondary and tertiary ideas. If there is no fundamental difference between men and women, then naturally, there is nothing special about marriage. Nor can there be anything special about fathers. A woman or two women can be just as effective in raising a child, so long as the child is given maternal love. “Love is all you need” (crooned the brilliant but sadly dysfunctional man who was abandoned by his father and raised by two women).

Maureen Dowd, in the title of her latest ovary glower womifesto of gynecrock, asks the appropriately dingcatty question, "Are Men Necessary?" Duh, I don't know:

“...[T]he correlation between social deviancy and fatherless homes is irrefutably linked.... According to the CDC, DoJ, DHHS and the Bureau of the Census, the 30 percent of children who live apart from their fathers will account for 63 percent of teen suicides, 70 percent of juveniles in state-operated institutions, 71 percent of high-school dropouts, 75 percent of children in chemical-abuse centers, 80 percent of rapists, 85 percent of youths in prison, and 85 percent of children who exhibit behavioral disorders. In addition, 90 percent of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes. In fact, children born to unwed mothers are 10 times more likely to live in poverty as children with fathers in the home.... '[The causal link between fatherless children and crime] is so strong that controlling for family configuration erases the relationship between race and crime and between low income and crime,' notes social researcher Barbara Whitehead."

D’oh! Stupid patriarchy. All it does is reduce behavioral disorders, dropout rates, suicide, poverty, substance abuse, addiction, homelessness, rape, violent crime, and the number of blacks behind bars. But on the negative side of the ledger, fatherhood also reduces the incidence of liberalism, so that one bad thing easily cancels out all the good it does. Plus, if there were more fathers, then there would be less poverty, crime and homelessness--all of the things that liberals exist to cure us of.

Therefore, it’s true: fathers really are the central impediment to the leftist takeover of government and culture--fathers and liberals are in direct competition for who can better solve the problems created by liberal solutions.

Thus, Job Two of the Democratic party must be to undermine and devalue the traditional family in any way possible. This has the effect of eliminating the importance of fathers and creating so many wonderful new problems to solve. Of course, the solutions won’t work, but they will allow you to feel better than those evil racist, sexist and homophobic conservatives, and that’s the main point of the exercise.

As I have mentioned before, my own field of psychology is so debased that it has become just another advocate for politically correct and dysfunctional lefitst lies. A politically incorrect psychologist can land in serious trouble if he utters certain elementary truths. I dropped out of the American Psychological Association long ago, and if I were a more enterprising individual, I might even try to start up a non-leftist alternative organization.

Most recently, the APA “has filed amicus briefs in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit opposing Nebraska's state marriage amendment because it denies same-sex parents equal status under law to heterosexual married parents," making it a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Ah, the APA and the legal bullies of the left, joining forces to bring out the wrecking ball to overturn the order of the cosmos.

To quote Dennis Prager, "It takes a particularly noble Democrat to promote marriage and family. The strengthening of these institutions is not in the Democrat Party's self-interest. The more people marry, and especially the more they have children after they marry, the more likely they are to hold conservative values and vote Republican. That is why it is inaccurate to speak of a 'gender gap' in Americans' voting. The gap is between married and unmarried women. Single women, especially single women with children, tend to vote Democrat, while married women, especially married women with children, tend to vote Republican."

But as the left always says, "the personal is the political." Naturally, if you have--through no fault of your own--been scarred and disillusioned by your own lack of a harmonious family and a loving, noble father, you will look for a substitute “community” elsewhere, like Kosfest in Las Vegas or naked bike rides in San Francisco. (Trust me, you don't want a link to that last one. Father knows best.)

UPDATE--

I love this typically garbled take from dailykos because it shows how clueless liberals are on issues of sexuality. If you acknowledge any moral standards at all, or if you actually recognize that sexuality is a potentially destructive force if not channeled in pro-social ways, you are a sexual fascist who simply wants to repress others. It is kooky enough that liberals think what they think, kookier still that they think this is how conservatives think:

"Evil. Suspect. Immoral. Dirty and shameful. Something no one should be proud to admit either having or enjoying. But mostly the ultimate temptation to succumb to selfish hedonism and to betray ideals."

"... Who but a right-wing fundie would think that love consummated between two consenting adults, whatever their gender, whatever the position, is a sin?"

"I've long thought that the individuals on the right who assume sexual freedom will give rise to all sorts of inarguably exploitive sexual situations--pedophilia, rape, manipulation of the trusting sexual partner and abandonment--are telling us a lot more about their own dark side than about the reality of most of our sexual relationships. And I often give a silent prayer of thanks that they are tamping themselves down, even as I resent their efforts to impose their strictures on the rest of us..."

But of course, it's the other way around. Adolescents like her require sexual boundaries in order to rebel against them and therefore escape guilt and feel superior. Her tyrannical and judgmental superego is placed into conservatives for safekeeping. I can't say that I blame her. It's pretty out of control with the accusations: "Evil! Immoral! Dirty! Shameful!"

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Spent yesterday afternoon at an educational presentation of the big local food bank - a little road show called "Hunger 101".
We did our best to respond to the Socratic elicitation of the first part - what is hunger? what is food insufficiency? who's likely to be hungry? Why?, etc. and to co-operate in the role-playing second part. But it was really a program more suited to laymen than pros and long-term volunteers.

What struck me most - probably due to Thursday's post, though I'm sure we'd have picked up on it anyway - was the total PC-ness of the whole procedure. This includes the slightly accusatory tone of the presentation: a sort of "Hah! I bet you didn't know that about hunger!" and an undercurrent that it was, somehow, our fault, or Society's fault, or *somebody's* fault that this situation exists.

But the idea that in some cases, it might actually be the fault of the hungry person was touched on so subtly as to be non-existant.

Now, we talk about this among ourselves - not usually in an accusatory way, but more in the resigned vein of "people make some stupid-ass choices. Always have, always will..." And sometimes people just have some bad luck, not always of their own making. But it is taboo to talk about this in public, seems.

Now, to their credit, the food bank does offer programs on nutrition and managing your food budget. They offer the inmates of one of the jails - pardon me, correction centers - the chance to earn a certificate in food prep through their meals program. They know there's a problem but they can't address it bluntly. Just in euphemisms like "failure to prioritize" (see "stupid-ass choices")and "inability to envision the future". The culture of poverty is one tricky chicken-egg dilemma.

I don't know if a straightforward statement of "Okay, your life is in severe disarray - here's some ways you can fix it." would work in today's victim culture.
JWM posted a while back that you can't fix the inner cities b.c of the sifting process that landed, or keeps, people there. The Left can't accept that there isn't some solution to this that they could force on society - if all those selfish people weren't so insistent on hanging onto the money they've earned.

(Check out DK for a savvy plea for them to quit saying that to the world at large, as it loses votes, big time.)They're not big on internal solutions, I've noticed.
And fwiw, my colleagues and I would be thrilled to be out of this particular job.

Hunger's one of those things that you can reasonably band-aid b/c if you don't, the person might not be there to help later on, nor would they be in shape to make other changes for the better. That doesn't mean we don't want some long-term solutions as well.

Sorry for the long ramble - the subject just seemed apropos.

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes, how can you help the people who truly need help without first distinguishing them from the many people who will be hurt by the help? Liberalism does not know this fundamental distinction, and therefore ends up creating more people who will need to be rescued by liberals.

Next time a liberal mentions "the poor," ask if they mean the deserving poor or the other kind? Watch liberal become apoplectic.

Anonymous said...

Someone once commented that the ideal and purpose of left/liberalism is to "turn every virtue into a vice and every vice into a virtue." Which I thought, at first glance, was something of an exaggeration for effect. Then I thought about it.

A convervative and a lefty both see a 14 year old girl in a live sex show. The conservative is concerned about tbe state of her family life, about the state of her soul. The lefty is concerned about her getting minimum wage.

Gagdad Bob said...

Will--

By the way, the politically correct term for the 14 year old girl is "sex worker." It's not as if she's a slave--that term is reserved for stay-at-home moms.

Anonymous said...

I would like to see a study comparing single mothers to single fathers and the outcome of their children. It can't happen. The entire social services system is geared toward the single mother. That status generates dysfunction which keeps the AFDC and legal system going. If you can create and grow the number of dysfunctional people, you create a booming industry in government workers in all the social service sectors, a geometric doubling of dependents per generation.

Anonymous said...

In case you need online "proof" for your case, please go here. I especially liked the part about "failed" concepts like "the melting pot." Ergo, we are no longer a country of individual united by the ideas embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Rather, we must maintain our group "differentness" in order to fight our way to the top of the pile.

Good post and enjoy the Gag-boy tomorrow.

Cheers.

Anonymous said...

R. Sherman--

How appropriate that that Seattle Psy.D's first name is "Caprice."

Anonymous said...

Yes, CY - Saw that, too, but I've just been to confession so am trying to Be Nice.

The more I force myself to hang out at DK, etc., the clearer it is that Utopia drives everything before it. In most places, a failure is something that doesn't work at all, or very poorly. There, a failure is something that doesn't work perfectly. The first time. For everybody.

except for socialism, which gets unlimited hall passes.

Small happinesses, as Dennis Prager discussed yesterday - graduation photo proofs and a paycheck in the mail, wedding party dresses done with time to spare, detailed sonogram shots of the g-son, great DVDs from the library branch we don't usually frequent, free exercise of religion, some RAIN - lost in the search for the unrealizable ideal.

Gagdad Bob said...

Reminds me of what my dad used to say--never eat at a place called Mom's, never play cards with a man named Doc, and never marry a woman named Caprice.

Anonymous said...

And as Boris Badanov said:
"Never underestimate the power of a schnook."


JWM

Anonymous said...

I saw an interesting letter to the editor in my regional daily newspaper. The letter was written by a female marketing executive for Verizon, and its theme was linked to Father's Day. The letter writer spoke about domestic violence and how fathers should step up to the plate and teach thier children that said violence is bad( I think we would all agree with that) and she concluded by saying that it would be very noble if fathers would commemorate Father's Day by sending thier old cell phones to a charity linked with Verizon that is dedicated to ending domestic violence.

I found myself wondering, as I read this letter, if the writer had sent a similiar letter to the editor just prior to Mother's Day, somehow I doubt it.

Tusar Nath Mohapatra said...

Biblical monotheism tends towards exclusivism – if you are not with us, you are against us. The Vedic view reflects unity-in-multiplicity – those who sincerely think differently than us are also with us, because there is no one way for all. The Vedic view is of a pluralistic world order that accommodates many variant views in a vast harmony. It is aware of the Absolute Unity of Truth but also recognizes its many creative forms in manifestation. -- David Frawley

http://savitrieralearningforum.blogspot.com/2006/06/vedic-pluralism-and-biblical.html

Anonymous said...

"Unity in multiplicity-those who sincerely think differently than us
are also with us".

Are you serious?
I don't feel the harmony with Islamofascism, Communism, Socialism, and Primitivism/Anarchyism.
I do feel revulsion,
because liberty is exclusive, else it isn't liberty.
Beware the absolute Truth followed by "but".

Happy Fathers Day to you Bob, and all you bobbleheads!

Anonymous said...

Ben: All he means is that we're stuck sharing a planet with them.

Gagdad Bob said...

Tusar

Oh yes, before those darn Biblical monotheists interfered with them, India was a tolerant, unified society... except for the millions of untouchables, and all those widows they tossed on the funeral pyre...

Don't confuse metaphysics and anthropology, Tusar.

Anonymous said...

Sal, you and your co-workers are saints. Like the small children at church, I would have to have a toy -- many toys -- to keep me quiet through that! Perhaps including a purse flask of hi-proof "medicine."

Truly, you are generous to your Food Bank's clients to be willing to pass that obstacle. And I'm sure that's not your point.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen a shelter for abused men?

Gagdad Bob said...

Yes. It's got swinging doors, a bar stool, and a juke box.

Anonymous said...

Bob,

Can we get state funding for that? How are your grant writing skills? It's the best use of my tax dollars that I have heard of so far.

Anonymous said...

Dilys -
The only place I'm ever without a Level 1 knitting project is church, so I was okay.

I do think the right thing to do would be to let them know that they might get more response if they didn't condescend - even unintentionally- or blame -ditto- their audience. Will run it by my supervisor...

Assistant Village Idiot said...

sal said "Utopia drives everything before it." Great phrase.

I find it fascinating that the Kossacks contradictory ideas means that all those people are getting married because they don't like sex. That's what you get when you extend the ideas just a bit further. A stupid person would never come up with such nonsense. You have to be fairly intelligent to twist yourself into such contortions.

Some single parents succeed, and some two-parent families fail. That doesn't invalidate the overall trend.

There's a reason why there aren't studies examining how male/female married couples compare in overall parenting results with A) male/female couples who don't marry but remain together for 18 years to raise a child or B) same-sex couples who remain together for 18 years to raise a child: there are so few members of groups A & B that you can't find enough to do a study.

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