The United States takes a lot of flak for our cultural depravity. We’re considered to be fat, lazy, reactionary, shallow, over-sexualized, even jingoistic. Yes, some of that is sometimes true, but the fact is that most cultures are guilty of these things, and not just in the west. The United States, though, is often made the example of everything wrong with the modern world, like we’re the impudent child compared to old Europe’s class and dignity. Well, not this week.
Over in Great Britain this week, a 13-year-old boy and 15-year-old girl have just become parents. Hardly anyone would be shocked if this occured in the United States, since much fodder for jokes is made about inner-city troublemakers, rural southern rednecks, or western Mormon broods. It’s easy to forget that even a country that places “Great” in their title is full of irresponsible and foolhardy people. These kids, though, are not the biggest problem in this equation.
Nine months ago, when Alfie Patten was only 12, he had sex 1 time with the older Chantelle Steadman. I may be naive, but it boggles my mind that a 12 year old, one who’s voice hadn’t even broken yet, would be having sex but that’s not to say I can blame him because at that age you hardly ever know what you’re doing and can easily just do things without thinking. Where the problem lies is that neither of these kids realized what they were doing or that the consequences of their actions could be a human life. Then, once they found out about the pregnancy, they decided it would be good to have the baby, but also didn’t want to tell anybody.
You could chalk this up to teenagers being teenagers and concerned more about getting in trouble than doing the right thing. I, instead, see a vicious pattern repeating. Chantelle’s parents are both unemployed and have 5 other children who they support on government assistance, while Alfie’s parents are divorced and he has 8 siblings. If you’re a father who only gets to see your children some of the time, and that time is divided between 9 children, how much of that time do you think is going to be spent at soccer matches and movies and how much do you think is going to be spent building trust and talking about sex and responsiblity?
These kids should have known better, first to have sex when they weren’t prepared for it, but putting that aside, they should have known to use protection, and after that, they should have known that this was such a big deal that they should have told their parents. The fact is, they didn’t know these things in part because their parents dropped the ball. It’s hard enough being a good parent under the best of circumstances, and gets exponentially harder when you start to early, can’t financially support them, have an unstable home life, and then have too many children too boot.
It’s unfortunate that now these kids will probably also repeat the mistakes of their parents. They certainly won’t last as a couple, and neither of them works yet so already they can’t take care of the child on their own. Education will now be secondary to them, and thus limit their opportunity to improve their lives and the life of their child, and kids who are having unsafe sex at 13 are just as likely to have unsafe sex at 20, so I’m sure more kids are on the way.
So who’s to blame? Is it just the parents? Is it the teenagers? Is it the schools or the media? Like our stimulus here in the States, there’s plenty of blame to go around. Ultimately, it’s a reminder that children are children and that not talking to them about sex doesn’t stop them from having it, but it does stop them from being prepared when they do. Maybe if they’d had proper sex education, or had attentive parents who were comfortable talking to them about sex, then maybe they wouldn’t have rushed into it, or if they had, would have been wise enough to use protection.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Thursday, February 12, 2009
New Adventures in Bad Parenting: Octuplets Edition!
This is one case that has been well worn, so I’ll keep it short. You’ve all heard about the single mother who already had 6 children under the age of 8, all through in vitro fertilization, and just had octuplets. This would be irresponsible behavior from a woman with a lot of support, and maybe it could be at least somewhat understandable if this had been an accidental pregnancy through usual means, but neither is the case. She is single, underemployed, in debt, and doesn’t even have an extended family to help her with these children. Her own mother thinks her behavior is unconscionable.
Here’s the kicker, though, and the part you may not know: she’s now asking for your help. After making the rounds of the talk show circuit, talking about how she doesn’t care if she doesn’t have a job or money because she’ll give these kids love (though with 14 kids, each one isn’t going to get a huge helping of love with her attention and resources divided) she then set up a website asking for donations to help her. So she had 6 kids that she couldn’t afford and couldn’t take care of, then spent money to have a doctor implant her with 8 more, and now after taking both welfare and food stamps wants taxpayers to give her even more out of their pockets. This behavior is unforgivable, and I doubt it’ll be long until she’s having more children and finding new loopholes to make other people pay for her irresponsibility.
People like her say that what really matters is that they will love their children. Well, guess what, that’s not enough, because nearly all parents love their children, and most of them love their children enough to give them time, and attention, and to provide them with the resources to have a home and health and education. It’s hard enough living in this world, and even harder when you start life in an overcrowded house where your mother is so overburdened that she barely has time for you, and certainly doesn’t have the time or money to give you every opportunity to succeed. It’s also harder when she can’t afford to feed you properly.
Child abuse comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s hitting your child. Sometimes, it’s neglecting your child or being emotionally abusive. Often, though, it’s enough to be selfish and to have too many children, too quickly, and without planning for it. She does this not because she thinks she can give these children a great life, but because she wants it. She wants lots of kids, she wants to be given lots of love, and she wants to be a mother, but being a real mother requires more than just having children.
Here’s the kicker, though, and the part you may not know: she’s now asking for your help. After making the rounds of the talk show circuit, talking about how she doesn’t care if she doesn’t have a job or money because she’ll give these kids love (though with 14 kids, each one isn’t going to get a huge helping of love with her attention and resources divided) she then set up a website asking for donations to help her. So she had 6 kids that she couldn’t afford and couldn’t take care of, then spent money to have a doctor implant her with 8 more, and now after taking both welfare and food stamps wants taxpayers to give her even more out of their pockets. This behavior is unforgivable, and I doubt it’ll be long until she’s having more children and finding new loopholes to make other people pay for her irresponsibility.
People like her say that what really matters is that they will love their children. Well, guess what, that’s not enough, because nearly all parents love their children, and most of them love their children enough to give them time, and attention, and to provide them with the resources to have a home and health and education. It’s hard enough living in this world, and even harder when you start life in an overcrowded house where your mother is so overburdened that she barely has time for you, and certainly doesn’t have the time or money to give you every opportunity to succeed. It’s also harder when she can’t afford to feed you properly.
Child abuse comes in many forms. Sometimes it’s hitting your child. Sometimes, it’s neglecting your child or being emotionally abusive. Often, though, it’s enough to be selfish and to have too many children, too quickly, and without planning for it. She does this not because she thinks she can give these children a great life, but because she wants it. She wants lots of kids, she wants to be given lots of love, and she wants to be a mother, but being a real mother requires more than just having children.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Hypocrisy as Ideology
Remember the terrifying days when the Republican Party was working on their “permenant majority?” The Democrats were outnumbered in every branch of the Federal Government, and the Republicans flaunted rules wherever they could get away with it. One thing that stood in their way of completely rolling right over the Democratic opposition in the Senate was the filibuster, a long-established guardian of minority opinions. Well, you know how Republicans feel about minorities (ooooh, low blow), and they weren’t having it. There would be one voice, and no dissent, you know, like a real Republic...like Caesar’s Rome.
That’s when they started floating the idea of their “Nuclear Option,” once again showcasing how Republicans care more about labeling things than about actual substance. With this, they were going to eliminate the filibuster, which they thought was undemocratic and being used by Democrats as sore losers to stop Republicans from doing the people’s business. How dare those Democrats… the Republicans would never act so shamefully.
Well, they didn’t proceed, and the filibuster remained, luckily for them. See, now that the Democrats have a majority, the Republicans have decided that, in fact, they kinda dig the filibuster. Before, the filibuster was the plain girl at the party, but now the Democrats have cornered all the hot chicks, and the Republicans are sad and lonely in the corner, and willing to lower their standards a bit to avoid going home alone.
How much do Republicans love filibusters? Well, during the last session, the filibuster was used 100 times. By comparison, when the Republicans were last in charge and the Democrats needed to use the filibuster, it was used only 34 times. What made the Republicans change their mind about filibusters? It certainly wasn’t some change in ideology, simply a change in strategy, which really IS the core Republican ideology. The Republican Party claims to have a platform that is pro-life, small government, state’s rights, but really all of that is lip service. Their real platform is whatever puts and keeps them in power. Right now, the only thing stopping them from being irrelevant in the Senate, as they mostly are in the House, is their ability to extend debate through use of a filibuster.
But let’s not let the Democrats off the hook. See, they’re not so great with the strategy. Democrats didn’t win majorities and the White House with some grand strategy, they stumbled into it almost be accident because the Republicans screwed things up so thoroughly that everyone in America started to realize that Democrats were the ones with all the good ideas. Except some Democrats are now contemplating the idea of abolishing the filibuster so that they can roll right over the Republicans in the Senate. Hopefully, they’ll use their nerdy, policy-wonk skills to, unlike those arrogant Republicans, realize that the American people can be fickle and that their power is not permenant. To abolish the filibuster may help them today, but then they’ll be kicking themselves when the Republicans are back in power and trying to push through the Drilling-Oil-In-National-Parks-For-Use-In-Fire-Bombs-for-Abortion-Clinics ACT (or DOINPFUIFBAC ACT...catchy, right?)
That’s when they started floating the idea of their “Nuclear Option,” once again showcasing how Republicans care more about labeling things than about actual substance. With this, they were going to eliminate the filibuster, which they thought was undemocratic and being used by Democrats as sore losers to stop Republicans from doing the people’s business. How dare those Democrats… the Republicans would never act so shamefully.
Well, they didn’t proceed, and the filibuster remained, luckily for them. See, now that the Democrats have a majority, the Republicans have decided that, in fact, they kinda dig the filibuster. Before, the filibuster was the plain girl at the party, but now the Democrats have cornered all the hot chicks, and the Republicans are sad and lonely in the corner, and willing to lower their standards a bit to avoid going home alone.
How much do Republicans love filibusters? Well, during the last session, the filibuster was used 100 times. By comparison, when the Republicans were last in charge and the Democrats needed to use the filibuster, it was used only 34 times. What made the Republicans change their mind about filibusters? It certainly wasn’t some change in ideology, simply a change in strategy, which really IS the core Republican ideology. The Republican Party claims to have a platform that is pro-life, small government, state’s rights, but really all of that is lip service. Their real platform is whatever puts and keeps them in power. Right now, the only thing stopping them from being irrelevant in the Senate, as they mostly are in the House, is their ability to extend debate through use of a filibuster.
But let’s not let the Democrats off the hook. See, they’re not so great with the strategy. Democrats didn’t win majorities and the White House with some grand strategy, they stumbled into it almost be accident because the Republicans screwed things up so thoroughly that everyone in America started to realize that Democrats were the ones with all the good ideas. Except some Democrats are now contemplating the idea of abolishing the filibuster so that they can roll right over the Republicans in the Senate. Hopefully, they’ll use their nerdy, policy-wonk skills to, unlike those arrogant Republicans, realize that the American people can be fickle and that their power is not permenant. To abolish the filibuster may help them today, but then they’ll be kicking themselves when the Republicans are back in power and trying to push through the Drilling-Oil-In-National-Parks-For-Use-In-Fire-Bombs-for-Abortion-Clinics ACT (or DOINPFUIFBAC ACT...catchy, right?)
This Record Doesn't Have a B-Side
When you were a kid, everyone had that friend who always messed things up. Maybe you were friends because of geographic proximity, or because your parents knew one another, or maybe you had limited options, but this friend wasn’t particularly great to have around. You’d invite them over and they’d get you in trouble, or break your stuff, and yet you would invite them over again and again, and get more of your toys broken. It was a vicious cycle and you felt trapped in it, and it almost never occured to stop letting that kid play with your toys.
We find ourselves in the midst of a global recession, one that any good economist (and plenty of lay-people like myself) saw coming a mile away. The last 8 years saw the coporate class raiding the cabinet, stretching every dollar, squeezing every profit, borrowing on borrowed money. The most outlandish, implausible, counter-intuitive economic theories were tested in the hopes of creating some sort of engine of capital, where profits constantly rose and everyone became a billionaire, without ever having to come back down to Earth. Clearly as we’ve seen, and as the last election has confirmed, those theories have failed. They are false.
Cutting taxes doesn’t automatically spur economic growth. Cutting regulations won’t free up the martketplace to police itself. Wealth, does not in fact, trickle down. What we saw time and again was that the only real motivation in an unregulated market is to make the maximum short-term profit. If cutting jobs meant slightly higher profit margins, then it was done, even if it did limit longterm growth and undercut the customer base. If slightly more money could be made by using toxic chemicals, with only a slight chance that you’d ever have to pay out money in court, then it was done. What we are left with now, though, are companies drowning in debt, without the adaptibility or the talent to pull themselves out of it, stuck in a cycle of overpaying executives while reducing output. Perhaps the market will sort itself out, but the thing that people don’t mention is that while the market is sorting itself out, millions of people will lose their jobs, companies will collapse, and years will go by.
That’s why Government steps in. It is not the place of the Government to control the economy or the lives of it’s people, but to boost the economy when it can and ease the burden when it falters. This is precisely the reason that we need a stimulus package. Presently, our economy is not running at capacity, and the options are to either give it a jump or let it continue to wind down. What this means is that where consumers aren’t spending, and companies are losing money, the Government needs to temporarily make up the difference, so that we can continue to run at full speed.
Here’s where it is win-win for us, though. Stimulus spending needs to have tangible results, it has to provide real jobs and funds here in the United States in the present. That means that we can put people to work building schools, repairing bridges, and doing scientific research. For now, they continue to get paid instead of going unemployed which also means that they will continue to go out and spend money at other business - good for everybody. It also means that when we come out on the other side of this recession, we’ll have greater infrastructure which will make it easier to do business. There will be fewer delays on highways for shipping, better educated workers coming out of the public school system, and production technologies that are more advanced and cheaper. How can we go wrong?
By inviting over our bad friends who break our toys. The Republican Party, the party that has cut regulations, made it easier to speculate and operate on imaginary earnings, the party that has allowed the wages of the majority of Americans to decline so that they can’t afford to buy things and allowed debt to climb, that has let the rich get richer and take their wealth overseas while the government has paid the price...that party which created such an obvious mess of the nation’s affairs that they were voted out of power in both the Legislative and Executive branches, they are continuing to peddle the same out wares they’ve been peddling for more than a decade. We gave them power and resources and they broke the economy, and now they are asking us to continue to play with our toys. It’s time that we ask them to go home.
Obstructionism is not an ideology, and we need to stop pretending that the Republican ideas are a valid counterpoint in any discussion. They have no ideas, except to do more of what got us into this trouble in hopes the it could mean one more day of bonuses or lower taxes, even if it only digs us deeper into a hole. This economy is bad for them too, and yet they are willing to take a little more money now even if it means that there will be far less money to be made in the future. The Democrats want to create jobs, now, by putting people to work on projects that need to be done and have needed to be done for a long time. The Republicans want to cut taxes, hoping that with the marginal money you save you’ll suddenly open a small business and buy a sports car. The Democrats want to improve our infrastructure to make us more efficient and make our daily lives easier and less expensive. The Republicans want to cut taxes, something that would give the Governement less money at a time when it has trillions of dollars of debt to pay off to foreign creditors and several wars to fight for billions of dollars a day. The Democrats want to improve educational opportunities and stimluate new industries to grow here in the United States, injecting our nation with new capital. The Republicans want to cut taxes, so that education, government grants, public works projects, and regulation will also have to be cut.
Why are we pretending that they can be part of the solution, that we should have to make compromises or listen to their tired ideas? On the news, they act like these two strategies are equal and simply different ways to solve a problem. That is false. One way may solve the problem, and even if it doesn’t will improve infrastructure and provide jobs for a while. The other way will put us further into debt without providing tangible relief to most people, and will only prolong this recession. I know it, the 60 percent of the American people who dissapprove of how the Republican party has handled this crisis know it, and it’s time that we acknowledge it. If the Republicans can’t stop making a mess, then we should stop inviting them to the party.
We find ourselves in the midst of a global recession, one that any good economist (and plenty of lay-people like myself) saw coming a mile away. The last 8 years saw the coporate class raiding the cabinet, stretching every dollar, squeezing every profit, borrowing on borrowed money. The most outlandish, implausible, counter-intuitive economic theories were tested in the hopes of creating some sort of engine of capital, where profits constantly rose and everyone became a billionaire, without ever having to come back down to Earth. Clearly as we’ve seen, and as the last election has confirmed, those theories have failed. They are false.
Cutting taxes doesn’t automatically spur economic growth. Cutting regulations won’t free up the martketplace to police itself. Wealth, does not in fact, trickle down. What we saw time and again was that the only real motivation in an unregulated market is to make the maximum short-term profit. If cutting jobs meant slightly higher profit margins, then it was done, even if it did limit longterm growth and undercut the customer base. If slightly more money could be made by using toxic chemicals, with only a slight chance that you’d ever have to pay out money in court, then it was done. What we are left with now, though, are companies drowning in debt, without the adaptibility or the talent to pull themselves out of it, stuck in a cycle of overpaying executives while reducing output. Perhaps the market will sort itself out, but the thing that people don’t mention is that while the market is sorting itself out, millions of people will lose their jobs, companies will collapse, and years will go by.
That’s why Government steps in. It is not the place of the Government to control the economy or the lives of it’s people, but to boost the economy when it can and ease the burden when it falters. This is precisely the reason that we need a stimulus package. Presently, our economy is not running at capacity, and the options are to either give it a jump or let it continue to wind down. What this means is that where consumers aren’t spending, and companies are losing money, the Government needs to temporarily make up the difference, so that we can continue to run at full speed.
Here’s where it is win-win for us, though. Stimulus spending needs to have tangible results, it has to provide real jobs and funds here in the United States in the present. That means that we can put people to work building schools, repairing bridges, and doing scientific research. For now, they continue to get paid instead of going unemployed which also means that they will continue to go out and spend money at other business - good for everybody. It also means that when we come out on the other side of this recession, we’ll have greater infrastructure which will make it easier to do business. There will be fewer delays on highways for shipping, better educated workers coming out of the public school system, and production technologies that are more advanced and cheaper. How can we go wrong?
By inviting over our bad friends who break our toys. The Republican Party, the party that has cut regulations, made it easier to speculate and operate on imaginary earnings, the party that has allowed the wages of the majority of Americans to decline so that they can’t afford to buy things and allowed debt to climb, that has let the rich get richer and take their wealth overseas while the government has paid the price...that party which created such an obvious mess of the nation’s affairs that they were voted out of power in both the Legislative and Executive branches, they are continuing to peddle the same out wares they’ve been peddling for more than a decade. We gave them power and resources and they broke the economy, and now they are asking us to continue to play with our toys. It’s time that we ask them to go home.
Obstructionism is not an ideology, and we need to stop pretending that the Republican ideas are a valid counterpoint in any discussion. They have no ideas, except to do more of what got us into this trouble in hopes the it could mean one more day of bonuses or lower taxes, even if it only digs us deeper into a hole. This economy is bad for them too, and yet they are willing to take a little more money now even if it means that there will be far less money to be made in the future. The Democrats want to create jobs, now, by putting people to work on projects that need to be done and have needed to be done for a long time. The Republicans want to cut taxes, hoping that with the marginal money you save you’ll suddenly open a small business and buy a sports car. The Democrats want to improve our infrastructure to make us more efficient and make our daily lives easier and less expensive. The Republicans want to cut taxes, something that would give the Governement less money at a time when it has trillions of dollars of debt to pay off to foreign creditors and several wars to fight for billions of dollars a day. The Democrats want to improve educational opportunities and stimluate new industries to grow here in the United States, injecting our nation with new capital. The Republicans want to cut taxes, so that education, government grants, public works projects, and regulation will also have to be cut.
Why are we pretending that they can be part of the solution, that we should have to make compromises or listen to their tired ideas? On the news, they act like these two strategies are equal and simply different ways to solve a problem. That is false. One way may solve the problem, and even if it doesn’t will improve infrastructure and provide jobs for a while. The other way will put us further into debt without providing tangible relief to most people, and will only prolong this recession. I know it, the 60 percent of the American people who dissapprove of how the Republican party has handled this crisis know it, and it’s time that we acknowledge it. If the Republicans can’t stop making a mess, then we should stop inviting them to the party.
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