Abstinence-Only Sex Education Programs Abstain From Common Sense

An abstinence-only sex education advocate reacts to another round of teen pregnancy data.

Buried in the soggy pile of shit that is the Senate health care bill is a $50 million provision for abstinence-only sex education programs. To review, those are the sex ed programs that only teach teenagers to wait until marriage before they have sex, while generally avoiding any talk of condoms, birth control pills, and other tried-and-true forms of contraception. Not surprisingly, this “just say no” approach has been an abject failure. And why wouldn’t it be? The basic premise behind abstinence-only sexual education is this: teach hormonal teenagers to suppress every natural biological urge that tells them to fuck. This is an especially sick and cruel philosophy when you consider the fact that we live in a society whose citizens are continually subjected to an onslaught of half-naked men and women hawking everything from shampoo to light beer. The basic premise behind these is that the products make the owners of them more sexually desirable, i.e., more fuckable. And fucking is good. So not only is nature actively working against the abstinence movement; the culture is as well.

Of course, these are just preliminary ruminations on the subject. What do the statistical analyses indicate? They do not bode well for abstinence programs. In 2008, the conductor of a Johns Hopkins University study concluded “that abstinence-only sex education programs do not affect sexual behavior,” and that “federal abstinence-only sex education funds should be shifted to evidence-based sex education programs that teach birth control and have been demonstrated to delay sexual initiation and increase safer sex practices.”

One of the more interesting findings was that teens who took an “abstinence pledge” to wait until marriage before having sex were just as likely to engage in sexual activity as teens who took no such pledge. In addition, those who took the pledges were “less likely to report using a condom or birth control and more likely to report never using a condom in the past year. They were less likely to have used birth control during their last sexual encounter.” Why? “Virginity pledgers may be less likely to use condoms and contraception because many abstinence programs cause participants to develop negative attitudes about their effectiveness.”

Here’s a trivia question: which U.S. state has the highest rate of teen pregnancy? If you follow American politics, it should really take you no more than two or three guesses to answer this question. The answer is obviously Mississippi—without question America’s shittiest state, as it ranks either last or very close to last in just about every quality of life category possible. It’s the Haiti of mainland North America. If you’re ever asked which state has the worst health care, or highest obesity rate, or worst education system, or worst anything, your best bet is to say, “Mississippi” every time. Over and over again the state is even declared the “least livable” by Congressional Quarterly. The not-so-ironic kicker to all this is that Mississippi is generally considered the most religious state, which shows you how much good all that praying is doing them.

That Mississippi is extremely religious, stresses an abstinence-only approach in its public schools, and has the worst teen pregnancy rate, is not coincidence. It is established fact that the more religious states focus more heavily on abstinence and have higher rates of teen pregnancy. In Mississippi, schools are not required to teach sex ed. However, if they do, “in no case shall the instruction or program include any demonstration of how condoms or other contraceptives are applied.” That’s not a very sound policy considering that condoms are the most effective way for preventing sexually transmitted disease among people who choose to engage in sexual intercourse. Obviously, abstinence is the best way to avoid STDs and pregnancy, but as noted earlier, reality poses a problem for the abstinence-only crowd, which is mostly religious. And that’s no surprise, because reality always poses a problem for the religious.

Why do the U.S. Congress and others insist on funding and teaching abstinence-only sex ed? The short answer is political correctness. Traditionally employed by conservatives to describe everything from the enforcement of the Establishment Clause to the humane treatment of gays, “political correctness” is what’s preventing sensible sex education from being implemented across the board. The reality is that people—teenagers especially—are going to fuck, no matter what sexually repressed adults tell them. Plainly speaking, many Americans need to get off their crippled moral high horse and acknowledge the biological and cultural realities of the situation, which unfortunately for them do not comport with their backwards worldview.

- Max

Religious People Are Whiney Crybabies

A believer reacts to someone questioning his faith.

The other night I did two things I never do: listen to a talk radio show, and call in to a talk radio show. The station was WTKK in Boston, and the host was Michele McPhee—a Laura Ingraham wannabe, and a person who may very well have the roundest, most nondescript face in the illustrious history of homo sapiens.

See what I mean?

I was ripping through the radio dial to find some tolerable listening while driving when I came across McPhee bitching and moaning about nationwide billboard advertisements purchased by cheeky atheists. Advertisements such as,

These signs had McPhee’s panties in a bunch, which was annoying enough, but then she proceeded to give a definition of an atheist as, “a nosy, bitter person with too much time on their [sic] hands.” This really pissed me off, because if there’s any group of people that can be described as nosy, bitter, and having too much time on their hands, it’s believers. Believers tell others how they should act, even in the bedroom, which is the epitome of nosiness. Furthermore, I’ve seen numerous, bitter, crotchety old clergy members torment children with tales of Hell, Satan, and eternal damnation. Lastly, it’s believers who go to church, pray, and attend religious functions on their own accord. Talk about too much free time.

Anyway, I called in, and it didn’t take me very long to get on the air, which tells you something about how many people were actually listening to this blowhard. The conversation went something like this:

McPhee: Max, you’re on the air. What do you think of these billboards?

Me: Good evening. Well actually, I’m not really calling about the billboards, but I was wondering if you could repeat your definition of an atheist from ten minutes ago.

McPhee: (Lies) I wasn’t talking about all atheists, just the ones who took out these ads.

After some ranting about nothing, she repeats the definition, “a nosy, bitter person with too much time on their hands.”

Me: I have to say, what you’re describing actually sounds like a believer more than an atheist. One need only consult the sermons of a priest or a pastor to see that they are a very nosy bunch—

McPhee: But you don’t have to go to sermons.

Me: Right, but their words show just how nosy—

At this point I was going to make the point that believers are always trying to regulate other people’s morality and private lives, but this wench was not going to let me complete a thought.

McPhee: Max, Max, do you have something to say about these billboards? I mean, “Yes Virginia, there is no God.”

Me: Ok, would you be saying this critical stuff if these were religious billboards?

Pause

McPhee: (Pulls something out of her ass) Religious billboards aren’t offensive.

Me: Religion by its nature is offensive. It teaches that people that those who believe something else are wrong—

McPhee: Ooook, Max.

Me: What about billboards and church signs that say, “Judgment day is near,” or “Hell awaits unless you repent”? What could be more offensive than that?

McPhee: Do those scare you, Max?

Me: No. I know it’s meaningless. But given that children can read this stuff, I’d say such messages amount to child abuse [psychologically speaking].

McPhee: Alright, Max.

Hangs up on me.

McPhee: Max needs a hug.

Yeah, and Michele McPhee needs nice steaming bowl of the shut the hell up. In order to complete the above sentences, I had to talk over the woman because she literally would not let me finish any of my remarks. And it wasn’t like I was rambling. I don’t listen to talk radio, but I know how these radio jerks work. You have to get your point out in less than ten seconds, but this bitch would not let me speak for more than five seconds uninterrupted, which was more infuriating than her dumbass position on the whole thing, which can be summed up thus:

Waaaa, waaaa. Atheists are buying ad spaces with their own money that challenge what the thousands upon thousands of religious signs across America say. Waaaa.

More and more, I’m realizing that religionists are the biggest bunch of crybabies in the United States today. By their own beliefs, God—the all-powerful deity—is on their side, and yet they feel so incredibly threatened when a group of random people buy billboard space that says, “Heathen’s Greetings.” Are you fucking shitting me? Is your faith that fragile that when some nonbelievers publicly call theism into to question with an advertisement, you think there’s a “war on Christmas” or some such bullshit? I have to believe that, at least subconsciously, many of the “faithful” suspect that their religious beliefs are nothing more than a humongous pile of metaphysical manure. What else would explain this rabid reaction to a few scattered signs? You see, questioning someone’s faith can be like calling a self-proclaimed heterosexual male, gay. If a man’s comfortable in his sexuality, if he’s banged tons of women, then calling him gay is just going to roll right off his back. He’ll probably even laugh. But call a sexually insecure guy a “homo,” and chances are you’ll get a much more impassioned reaction and fervent denial. In which case we must ask ourselves, “What’s really going on here?”

Chinks in the armor of religion. That’s what’s going on. Chinks in the armor.

- Max

Al Franken Shuts Down Joe Lieberman

Well, well. Looks like some Democrat finally had the balls to show Traitor Joe that he doesn’t appreciate his recent duplicitous conduct on health care reform.

- Max

Inevitable Democratic Party Sellout On Health Care Reform Almost Complete

Towards the end of The Big Lebowski, there’s a scene where The Dude, Walter, and Donny leave the bowling alley and find that the nihilists have set fire to The Dude’s car in the parking lot, and The Dude, in a calmly accepting tone says, “Well, they finally did it. They killed my fucking car.” That pretty much sums up my feelings about the inevitable death of the public option and any meaningful health care reform.

To review, here’s how the Senate Democrats—the so-called party of working class people—have handled health reform:

• Took the prospect of a single-payer system off the table before the debate even began

• Advanced the idea of a government-funded public insurance option as an alternative to the more expensive private plans

• Withdrew said public insurance option

• Briefly advanced the idea of lowering the Medicare age from sixty-five to fifty-five

• Withdrew said idea of lowering the Medicare age from sixty-five to fifty-five
  
  
• Now want to force Americans to buy health insurance or pay a penalty, even though there is no cheaper public option. There is an expansion of Medicaid, but even with this you’ll still have to be piss-poor to qualify.

• Rejected the Dorgan amendment, which would have allowed reimportation of less-expensive pharmaceuticals from Canada, despite the fact that the United States has the highest drug prices in the world

• Have proposed no measures that would allow the government to negotiate drug prices for Medicare

Jesus Christ, Democrats. Do you think your health insurance industry masters will be satisfied and let you vote for this water-downed horseshit legislation now? I mean, there’s no public option to compete with private HMOs, you’re forcing all Americans to buy health insurance, you’re disallowing the possibility of importing drugs from Canada, and will not allow Medicare to negotiate lower prices on pharmaceuticals. This whole health care “reform” process has been like a seven month-long abortion.

I’m with Howard Dean. This bill sucks and should not be passed. Of course, it will get passed because it’s a big fucking giveaway to the health insurance industry and Big Pharma. And they generally get what they want. Congratulations, Senate Democrats. You have gotten me to side with the Teabaggers!

- Max

Michelle Malkin Is A Crazy Reactionary

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I have a hard time understanding the right wing’s mindset in this country. On one hand, conservatives feel they can’t possibly overstate how awful the government is, how government involvement in anything can only make that thing worse, and how Reagan was dead-on when he said that the nine most terrifying words in the English language are, “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”

On the other hand, these same conservatives will watch World War II veteran Howard Zinn’s The People Speak on History (channel), which is an assault on the very real evils perpetrated by the American government throughout its history, and recoil in horror at the portrayal of the government as capable of such immorality, incompetence, and dastardly deceit. In case you missed it, here’s the documentary’s synopsis:

Democracy is not a spectator sport. Using dramatic and musical performances of the letters, diaries and speeches of everyday Americans, THE PEOPLE SPEAK gives voice to those who spoke up for social change throughout U.S. history, forging a nation from the bottom up with their insistence on equality and justice. Narrated by Howard Zinn and based on his best-selling books, A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People's History of the United States, THE PEOPLE SPEAK illustrates the relevance of these passionate historical moments to our society today and reminds us never to take liberty for granted.

Among those horrified by this concept is Michelle Malkin, who decries Zinn’s “Marxist education project”:

Teachers are not supposed to teach facts in the school of Zinn. “There is no such thing as pure fact,” Zinn asserts. Educators are not supposed to emphasize individual academic achievement. They are supposed to “empower” student collectivism by emphasizing “the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements.” School officials are not facilitators of intellectual inquiry, but leaders of “social struggle.”

(Side note: I was unable to find the source for Zinn’s alleged “pure fact” remark. I did a Google search of that sentence, and the only returns I got were of Malkin’s column.)

These overwhelmingly reactionary comments indicate that Malkin is way off the mainstream political spectrum, placing her on the far, far right, somewhere between Pat Buchanan and Franco. The idea that it’s somehow awful to try to inspire children by stressing “the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements” in American history shows an incredible contempt for the American people, and a distaste for popular social movements. Malkin is surely aware that the government had to be dragged—kicking and screaming—into abolishing slavery, granting women’s suffrage, implementing workplace safety standards and minimum wage, desegregating the schools, and so on, by average Americans coordinating their efforts through “social struggle.” Governments do not simply hand out rights to people. Rights are won because people fight for them tooth and nail until their voices become too loud and powerful for the government to ignore any longer.

But Malkin, who ironically is a Filipino-American born to immigrants, will have none of this. For her, the role of everyday Americans in the ongoing struggle against the government for a better life is best ignored so as to make the population feel helpless and marginalized. One would think that given her favorable view of the Tea Party protestors, Malkin would find The People Speak somewhat inspiring. I don’t expect her to agree with Zinn’s liberal views, but the fact that she ignores the most obvious and important lesson of the program—that the government is not going to change unless pressured by the people into doing so, and that democracy means more than voting every two or four years—suggests that Malkin is just a good old-fashioned statist.

And really, that’s what a lot of American conservatives have become: statists. One of the reasons I like Ron Paul, even though I don’t agree with a lot of his politics, is that he’s an actual conservative, which is more than I can say for the phonies who populate the Republican Party. During George W. Bush’s first term, I was quite convinced that most GOP members of Congress and a substantial portion of the American population would’ve followed the president right into fascism, no questions asked. There was seemingly no limit to the adoration many had for him, and consequently it was a very scary time in recent American history.

These considerations reveal an inherent contradiction in the modern American conservative ideology: government is bad, and the less of it, the better. But, taking a critical view of government from an historical perspective is wrong, anti-American, and perhaps Marxist.

Without question, a large part of the current mistrust of government by conservatives has to do with the fact that there’s a Democrat in the White House, who in the eyes of many of them, cannot possibly do anything right, except for deciding in favor of a troop surge in Afghanistan.

And perhaps there’s a lesson in that. An expansive health care initiative is met with revulsion from conservatives, but a plan to escalate a war is heartily welcomed. The latter ostensibly contributes to the “glory” of the state, while the former does not. As Wolf has previously observed on this site,

The fundamental hypothesis of Terror Management Theory (TMT) is that repression of mortality awareness is accomplished by two primary mechanisms; having faith in a particular cultural worldview (or shared conception of reality) and self-esteem striving (see e.g., Greenberg, Solomon, & Pyszczynski, 1997; Pyszczynski, Greenberg, Solomon, Arndt, & Shimmel, 2004, for reviews). Cultural worldviews imbue the psyche with a sense of meaning by providing explanations for existence, standards of acceptable behavior, and the potential to transcend physical death; either symbolically, through contributing to something greater and more enduring than one’s self (e.g., a nation, political ideology, family), or literally, by having faith in an afterlife (Arndt & Vess, 2008). TMT sees cultural worldview defense as essential to the establishment and maintenance of self-esteem, which also serves to buffer basic existential concerns. To date, an impressive body of evidence has lent support for the roles that self-esteem and worldview defense play on attenuating mortality concerns.

Thus, statism is one possible manifestation of the “repression of mortality awareness.”

We all know how the 9/11 attacks led to nauseating displays of flag-waving in this country. It was, in effect, the perfect terror management experiment conducted on a massive scale. After the citizens of this country were reminded of their mortality, they could not help but display glowing pride in our nation and also the simultaneous desire to destroy some common enemy that threatened their worldviews. Patriotism is just one example of something that provides people with a sense of symbolic immortality. Feeling patriotic with regard to American values, for example, enables people to immerse themselves in a part of a greater whole, a whole that is much larger and certainly more enduring than their individual existences. When we are reminded of death, those with differing worldviews (e.g., Muslims, Zoroastrians, the French, etc) are all viewed with more open hostility.

Given these insights, it is not surprising that right wingers reacted negatively to speeches Obama gave earlier this year in France and Egypt in which he stressed the importance of international diplomacy and consensus-building, while admitting that America “has shown arrogance” in the international arena. The president was subsequently accused of “apologizing” for America, and bitterly condemned by Karl Rove in the Wall Street Journal, where the latter invoked the insights of war criminal Henry Kissinger about what makes a great statesman.

Howard Zinn’s project—just like his A People’s History of the United States—is a departure from classic conceptualizations of American history, which have the awful habit of focusing exclusively on presidents, statesmen, businessmen, and other people at the top of the social hierarchy. The People Speak seeks to capture the immortal words of the people—the underdogs—in their fight for the basic human and civil rights that had to be wrested from government, which, by its very nature, is averse to change in virtually all forms.

Michelle Malkin’s staggeringly reactionary statements should be abhorred by any freedom-loving democrat and champion of people’s rights. States are not moral actors; they are outlets through which elites exercise power. The United States is no different. But to teach this elementary idea amounts to a “Marxist education project,” according to Malkin. And to teach, for example, that James Madison and the other framers of the Constitution were quite concerned with the property rights of the wealthy (including them) being protected from the majority of the population, also amounts to a “Marxist education project.” Of course, it does not matter at all that one can read the Federalist Papers and James Madison’s Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention of 1787, and plainly see that this is indeed what was going on. All that matters is that merely pointing this out is divisive, and therefore not conducive to national unity, which is necessary for the glorification of the state.

To properly glorify the state, a relatively unblemished historical record is required for doctrinal purposes. The function of Malkin’s “reactionary education project” would not be to impart an accurate historical account of the United States and its government, but to indoctrinate the next generation of shameless and unquestioning flag-wavers who will repudiate “the role of working people, women, people of color and organized social movements” in American history. In short, Malkin’s history is a history of power, for power, and by power.

So that’s what concerns Malkin. Here’s what concerns Howard Zinn:

“I’m worried that students will take their obedient place in society and look to become successful cogs in the wheel—let the wheel spin them around as it wants without taking a look at what they’re doing. I’m concerned that students not become passive acceptors of the official doctrine that's handed down to them from the White House, the media, textbooks, teachers and preachers.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

- Max

(Tea) Party Like It's 1859!

Some asshole with a sign

With the inevitable incorporation of a virulent anti- illegal immigration stance and nativist rhetoric into its informal platform against government overspending, the Tea Partiers have cobbled together a quasi-coherent narrative that purports to explain the sorry state of America. The narrative itself has little grounding in reality, but as an instrument for mobilizing popular support against a myriad of government initiatives, it has the potential to imperil not only the Democrats who are up for reelection in 2010, but also many incumbent Republicans who are viewed by the Tea Partiers as RINOs—Republicans in name only.

Or not. Perhaps the Tea Partiers will be nothing more than a curious footnote in the annals of American political history—just another fleeting fringe political movement whose basic platform was co-opted by one of the major parties in time to gain critical support in an election year. I suspect that the historians of posterity will say of the Tea Parties something like the following:

In an era of rising dissension in the United States, the Tea Partiers created a rhetoric appealing to a cluster of basic values that the nation still found compelling, no matter whether the hearer was from North or South. For a time, it molded the perceptions of a large number of Americans by providing a precise cause and simple solution for all the social ills. The values selected by the Tea Party imply an audience that embodies these values, reveres them, and seeks to practice its principles. Thus, by accepting the Tea Party role, Americans of the period became heroes, defenders of Americanism in every sense of the word.

Tea Party rhetoric cast the audience as united Americans who could save the union by reinforcing traditional American values at the ballot box. This vision of the audience had two weaknesses, one which was intrinsic to the nativist message, and one which was extrinsic. The intrinsic flaw arose from the contradiction between noble values and ignoble actions which violated the audience’s newly created self-concept. The second problem arose because the party did not adapt its vision of the audience to fit political reality.

The rise and fall of the Tea Partiers lends hope to those who fear similar “paranoid” political parties might someday garner enough power to rule in the United States. Americans have seen the rise of many prejudiced political movements, and have also, with no small amount of relief, seen them fall. But the sentiments persist, and may rise again.

Now for the full disclosure. I did not write this passage. Professor Cheree Carlson of Arizona State University did. And not only that, her essay that this passage is excerpted from is not about the Tea Parties, but rather the anti-immigration, anti-Catholic Know Nothing Party of the 1850s. All I did was replace “Know Nothings” with “Tea Partiers.” If it doesn’t seem like there’s much of a difference between these two factions, that’s because there isn’t. Like the Know Nothings, the Tea Partiers have made their ascent during a time of internal strife and “rising dissension.” The charge by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other liberals that the Tea Parties are “Astroturf”—a faux popular movement devised by corporate interests to sabotage Democratic legislative efforts—has a parallel in criticisms of the Know Nothings:

Genuine free soilers [a pre-Civil War political movement against the spread of slavery into the western territories] deplored the Know-Nothing craze as a red herring that diverted attention from “the real question of the age,” slavery…[Indiana politician] George Julian even suspected that this “distracting crusade against the Pope and foreigners” was a “cunning” scheme of proslavery interests “to divide the people of the free states upon trifles and side issues, while the South remained a unit in defense of its great interest.”

James McPherson

Battle Cry of Freedom, p. 138

As tensions mounted between North and South, immigration became decreasingly important as a political issue. Just like the much more politically successful Whig Party, the Know Nothings were done in during the 1850s mainly by the fact that party members split along geographical lines on the slavery question.

The Tea Partiers have no such disadvantage. They are mobilizing against and speaking to the “real question of the age,” the economy. Despite the recent troop surge in Afghanistan, Americans are focusing more on domestic problems—unemployment, underemployment, stagnant wages, tight credit. Americans know that there is indeed something terribly wrong with the country, and the Tea Partiers have an answer that’s been spoon-fed to them by the right-wing media: liberals want to bankrupt America by enacting “socialist” policies, and grant amnesty to illegal immigrants who “take jobs from Americans.” The reason for the financial crisis, says the narrative, is that poor people—often minorities—took out mortgages they knew they couldn’t afford, and defaulted on them en masse, leading to the collapse of the housing bubble, sending shockwaves through the rest of the economy. Furthermore, the resulting high unemployment is thanks in large part to illegal immigrants, who work for very low pay. As a corollary to this, Barack Obama—who is a Muslim immigrant from Kenya—is seeking to help the illegals at the expense of hardworking Americans by proposing several “Marxist” reforms.

Anyone with her head screwed on properly knows that this explanation is pure fantasy. But for people who don’t know what a derivative is, or what the Gramm-Leach-Bliley and Commodity Futures Modernization acts did, the narrative makes perfect sense. Ingrained in just about every Tea Partier’s brain is a preconceived set of notions about traditional American values: freedom, individualism, and capitalism are the common denominators, and these have made the United States “the greatest country on earth,” whatever that means. The idea that the White House is presently inhabited by the Manchurian Candidate means trouble for these values. If America became the greatest country ever by championing capitalism and fighting communism, then surely with a Marxist president at the helm, America has nowhere to go but down.

Again, all this is loco. Actual capitalism hasn’t prevailed in the United States for at least seventy years or maybe ever. The dirty little secret of the World War II economic boom in America was that it came during a time when government intervention in the economy was at its peak. During the war years, the U.S. ran a Soviet-style command economy centered on the production of military hardware, and experienced unprecedented growth and prosperity. This development did not go unnoticed by America’s elites, and ever since, the government has been running a permanent war economy, characterized by heavy taxpayer subsidies to defense contractors in what has been a horrifying vindication of Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex.

There is no indication that these considerations enter the minds of Tea Partiers, and with good reason. Part of the mythology of America the Greatest is that it has the mightiest military on earth because as the saying goes, “Freedom isn’t free.” So attacks on defense spending have been nonexistent from the Tea Partiers, which is hardly a surprise because the Pentagon’s budget is off limits in public discourse generally. Any talk of cutting its mesospheric budget is liable to be perceived as an attempt to weaken America and make it more susceptible to terrorist attacks and other foreign machinations. But what is a surprise is the almost total lack of outrage at Wall Street and its deregulatory enablers in Washington. Without question, the Tea Partiers are angered by the bailouts, but they have inexplicably already moved on from the ongoing government subsidization of the financial services sector. Now, the brunt of their fury is aimed at the Democrats and their efforts to reform health care, which, unlike TARP and related programs, is actually designed to provide some measure of relief to regular people—people who cannot afford private health insurance. The bill is not great by any means, but it nonetheless has the potential to help millions of Americans, including many of the poor working stiff Tea Partiers who have haplessly misdirected their anger at red herrings such as immigration and phantom socialism. Never mind that key economic advisers to Obama are former investment bankers and other corporate-types. Obama’s a Marxist because Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sean Hannity say so. And between the three of them, they have zero college degrees, which means they haven’t been corrupted by the liberal intelligentsia.

Like the Know Nothings during their heyday, the Tea Partiers are succeeding because they are providing a coherent answer for the perceived ills of the country. Ultimately, the former party was rendered irrelevant by the slavery issue and the rigidity of the its rhetoric. The Tea Partiers, on the other hand, are addressing the big problem on everyone’s mind. However, their prominence will last only as long as the economy is in the tank. I suspect that the significance of the Tea Parties will have an inverse relation to the perceived strength of the American economy. As long as Americans think the economy is in trouble, the concerns of the Tea Partiers will seem salient to them. But turn the economy around—or at least convince the American people that it’s turned around—and the Tea Partiers will become a nonfactor.

If America were a sane place, there would indeed be mass protests, but ones directed at the megabankers in Lower Manhattan, and the deregulators and the bailer-outers in Washington. But America is not a sane place. Instead, it is a place where popular outrage manifests itself in absurd attacks on illegal immigrants, gays, nonexistent Marxist politicians, and whatever other nonsensical scapegoats can be conjured up by the delirious, paranoid masses who have been taking it on the chin ever since Reaganomics started to chip away at the average American’s standard of living.

Source: Macroblog

It is to be hoped that the Tea Partiers either redirect their outrage at the real culprits of the times, or fade into obscurity. That they are accusing Obama—a man who has packed his administration with shameless corporatists—of being some kind of communist, illustrates the preposterous and misguided nature of the movement. The Tea Partiers are right to criticize the president, but they are doing so for all the wrong reasons—reasons which amount to laughable non sequiturs.

In light of these considerations, the Tea Partiers aren’t just similar to the Know Nothings, they are Know Nothings, literally. They know not the instruments of their oppression, and popular ignorance is the most valuable asset that Wall Street and Washington could ever possess.

- Max

Islam Is A Heinous, Evil, Abomination

Islam in action.

Despite eight years of U.S.-imposed “freedom” in Afghanistan, the women of that country remain one of the most oppressed people on earth. As a result of the Taliban resurgence, and also the rise of Islamic fundamentalist factions in the Afghan government, the picture looks grim for the women there:

Afghan women are among the worst off in the world, violence against them is “endemic” and Afghanistan’s government fails to protect them from crimes such as rape and murder…

“Women will not seek help because of their fears of police abuse and corruption, or their fears of retaliation by perpetrators of violence,” said the 96-page [Human Rights Watch] report, which is based on 120 interviews from different Afghan provinces...

The report cites cases where rapists have been pardoned by the government, girls and women have been imprisoned for running away from home, rape victims have been charged with adultery and where women in public life have been murdered.

It comes a week after the United Nations said violence and rape against women in Afghanistan was a problem of “profound proportions.”

Reuters

The Taliban may no longer be in power, but the legacy of Sharia law is alive and well. After all, the Qur’an teaches,

Men are the maintainers of women because Allah has made some of them to excel others and because they spend out of their property; the good women are therefore obedient, guarding the unseen as Allah has guarded; and (as to) those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them, and leave them alone in their sleeping places and beat them; then if they obey you, do not seek a way against them; surely Allah is High, Great.

Shakir’s translation of the Koran, Quran, 4:34

This is pretty clear instruction. Disobedient women are to be literally beaten into submission. In instances of noncompliance in the bedroom, the Afghan government has given men the legal remedy of denying their wives food and drink if they refuse to have sex with them. Of course, that drastic action is likely rendered unnecessary by the fact that Afghani men generally have fewer qualms about raping their wives than men elsewhere. In fact, there is no specific provision in the Afghan legal code that criminalizes rape. Even if there were, the political and social culture in that country is such that rapes would garner no serious attention from authorities.

Naturally, the craziness is not just confined to Afghanistan. From today’s Jordan Times:

The Criminal Court prosecutor on Saturday charged a 36-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his younger married sister the previous day in the latest so-called honour murder in the Kingdom, according to official sources.

The 34-year-old victim, who was nine months pregnant, received seven fatal stab wounds to different parts of her body, allegedly inflicted by her brother, one senior official source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect then headed to the nearest police station, handed the knife he allegedly used in the incident to the officer on duty and claimed “family honour as his motive”, the source added.

The Islamist said he stabbed his own sister because he thinks she was committing adultery, and on top of that, she often left the house without her husband, i.e., unsupervised!

This is nothing new. An “honor killing” is carried out when a woman has shamed—or has been perceived to have shamed—her family by committing some awful deed, such as disobeying her husband, walking in public without a male escort, or getting raped. The killing is committed when some virtuous Muslim man or men, take it upon themselves to rectify this abhorrent state of affairs by stabbing, stoning, beating, or shooting the offending woman to death.

Recently, in Somalia, a young woman accused of adultery was murdered by the local militia, which was simply enforcing Sharia law:

According to reports from a small village near the town of Wajid, 250 miles (400km) north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, the woman was taken to the public grounds where she was buried up to her waist.

She was then stoned to death in front of the crowds [which were about 200 strong] on Tuesday afternoon.

The judge, Sheikh Ibrahim Abdirahman, said her unmarried boyfriend was given 100 lashes at the same venue.

BBC

Even in America, these “honor killings” have been perpetrated, with six documented cases in the past two years.

Some might object that Islam is actually a religion of kindness and peace. Bullshit. Islam is no more peaceful than Christianity. The Qur’an is so broad and vague and contradictory as to justify virtually any disgusting practice, including the murder of me and my ilk:

Allah is an enemy to unbelievers. - Sura 2:98

Slay them wherever ye find them and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. - 2:191

O Prophet! Make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites. Be harsh with them. Their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s end. - 9:73

It is perhaps too sanguine of me to hope that Islam itself is headed for a hapless journey’s end anytime soon. While not all Muslims act in such a destructive and wicked manner, Islamic extremism is simply a symptom of the disease of Islam. And in several ways, the religion is actually worse than a disease. Can you recall any disease that infected one billion people worldwide? Do you know of any disease where the afflicted generally wish to remain ill?

By far, the most important question is: What prospects for success does the vaccine of reason have for inoculating the sick?

If our country with its own (less dangerous, Christian) extremists is any indication, the answer is, very few. god help us!

- Max

Larry Kudlow: Plutocratic Douchebag

Larry Kudlow explains why Wall Street needs our money, but we don’t.

I wasn’t going to write anything for this site today, but then I happened to catch part of the Kudlow Report tonight on CNBC. It was thoroughly infuriating. Larry Kudlow was talking about the reduced cost of the Troubled Assets Relief Program. Now, in case you missed that story, from NPR:

“Large banks are repaying the bailout money they received much faster than expected. The administration says the cost of the TARP program will be about $200 billion less than estimated. Big financial firms are making profits again because the government has driven down borrowing costs for banks and safeguarded their debts.”

“Safeguarded their debts” is a euphemism for “saddled the taxpayers with the responsibility for the banks’ toxic assets and have extended huge lines of credit to them.” The government has promised Citigroup that it would cover up to $277 billion in losses for that firm alone!

Anyway, Kudlow was interviewing Senator John Thune (R - South Carolina), talking about the possibility of the $200 billion going towards what the former called a “Democratic slush fund,” instead of paying down debt. Kudlow seemed to be particularly concerned about the prospect of the money being spent on “social safety nets” and a jobs creation plan that might be on Obama’s agenda. Put another way, Kudlow doesn’t want the money going to social programs, such as unemployment insurance, health care, and education.

Ok, so Kudlow’s a stickler for paying down the national debt, and “protecting the taxpayers,” as he likes to say. There’s nothing wrong with that. But wait. Let’s rewind to the days right before TARP was passed by Congress in what was a hideous betrayal of American public opinion. See what Kudlow told Senator Bernie Sanders (I - Vermont) in the first 30 seconds of this clip:

Later in the interview Kudlow claimed of TARP, “This is a bailout…of Main Street, of middle class folks who desperately need credit.”

Bull. Shit. Desperately need credit? What the hell does he think caused this crisis in the first place? High interest rates? A deflationary spiral? Credit was the last thing Main Street needed then or needs now. What the fuck was this man talking about? If anyone can make any sense of this comment, email me or post to the Facebook page.

But back to the main point of this post; Kudlow’s position on TARP and the $200 billion left over from it tell us all we need to know about him and the fuckers at CNBC, and the business world in general. To review, Kudlow heartily supported a $700 billion government bailout of Wall Street financial institutions that were in the shitter for no reason other than their own greed. When it is discovered that $200 billion of the TARP will not be necessary, Kudlow goes out of his way to express concern that the money will go directly to Main Street, which is in the shitter because of the greedy assholes on Wall Street.

If you watched the rest of the video above, (beginning at the 3:35 mark) Sanders pointed out that Kudlow is mortified by the idea that the government spend money for health care or the alleviation childhood poverty, but he has no qualms about forking over hefty sums of money to the giant vampire squids of Wall Street.

Should we be surprised that some douche can go on TV, lobby for the rescue of plutocrats from their own greed-driven death spirals, emphatically state that the extra money from this enterprise has no business going towards “social safety nets,” and then not get his studio burned down by an angry mob with him inside? On CNBC, probably not. The hoi polloi aren’t exactly known for following the business press—or any press for that matter. But one gets the sense that even if, say, some working class teabagger had been watching this, there would be nods of approval at Kudlow’s remarks while ignoring his outrageous double standard: socialism for the rich, capitalism for everyone else.

That’s where we’re at in this country. They don’t even try to hide it anymore. Larry Kudlow can go on television and advocate giving taxpayer money to Wall Street banks, but then say that the government has no business spending taxpayer money on programs for the taxpayers. That is his idea of “protecting the taxpayers.”

Larry Fucking Kudlow, ladies and gentlemen.

- Max

In Defense Of Same-Sex Marriage

The arguments against same-sex marriage are of two kinds: the first pertains to the perceived sinful nature of the practice of homosexuality by most religions; the second has to do with the alleged adverse effects same-sex marriage would have on children. Neither case withstands even a modicum of scrutiny—a fact that suggests that the fundamental driving force behind the opposition to SSM is plain, crude, ugly bigotry, cloaked in a superficial moralism so as to lend legitimacy to a position which seeks to deny certain people a fundamental right.

The basis for the prohibition on homosexuality in Western culture has been the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus 18:22 which states,

“Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable (an abomination).”

This passage is authoritatively cited, as if its tenets could possibly have any moral bearing on the lives of modern humankind. Anyone who is familiar with the book of Leviticus knows that its content is overly concerned with the proper ways to make offerings to the Lord, and female menstruation. A clear majority of the book’s instructions are not followed by even the most ardent of the faithful, as its commandments reek of the sort of antiquated paganistic ritual sacrifice that was commonplace during the time when humans knew very little about how the world works.

This same book of the Old Testament gives the following instruction in 19:19:

“Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.”

If the State’s legal codes were truly grounded in biblical precepts, how many poor farmers might be needlessly persecuted under such a régime? How many of us would have to burn our sinful hybrid garments and throw ourselves to the ground so that we may grovel and plead for forgiveness from the Lord for having committed such a gross violation of divine law? The prohibition against mixed fabric is even repeated in Deuteronomy 22:11, implying that it is an important commandment indeed. And yet, for all the apparent seriousness with which that diktat is promulgated, it is regularly ignored by Christians and Jews the world over. This blatant and shameless disregard for particular ecclesiastical laws would seem to indicate an inconsistent application of the Bible’s maxims, and thus, a porous foundation upon which to build a case for the exclusion of homosexuals from the institution of marriage. Biblical prohibition or sanction is hardly a justification for anything. Christians speak of “defending” marriage from SSM, but we do not hear them ruing the failed defense of slavery against the abolitionists. Slavery, like marriage, is an institution clearly justified throughout the Bible, and yet we ought to be hard-pressed to find a Christian or anyone else who would have us reinstitute that practice, despite its obvious approbation by the “Good” Book.

One could go on for days in this fashion, examining passages in the Bible that people of most faiths and cultures find depraved and an insult to humanity, even in America, which has a startling number of fundamentalist Christians. Hence, we must conclude that Americans are not moral because of the Bible, but rather they are moral in spite of the Bible. That the faithful adopt those biblical principles they find agreeable, and discard those they find contemptible or impractical, are clear indications that humans are capable of formulating their own moral codes without “divine” guidance. This is not to say that humans are perfect or incapable of transgression; but it is certainly within their capacity to devise norms conducive to social cohesion, as evidenced by the complete disregard for the majority of biblical commandments. To wit:

Exodus 21:20

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, 21 but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property.

Exodus 22:18

Do not allow a sorceress to live.

Leviticus 20:9

If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death. He has cursed his father or his mother, and his blood will be on his own head.

Leviticus 21:18-23

No man who has any defect may come near: no man who is blind or lame, disfigured or deformed; no man with a crippled foot or hand, or who is hunchbacked or dwarfed, or who has any eye defect, or who has festering or running sores or damaged testicles. No descendant of Aaron the priest who has any defect is to come near to present the offerings made to the LORD by fire. He has a defect; he must not come near to offer the food of his God. He may eat the most holy food of his God, as well as the holy food; yet because of his defect, he must not go near the curtain or approach the altar, and so desecrate my sanctuary. I am the LORD, who makes them holy.

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who does not obey his father and mother and will not listen to them when they discipline him, his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his town. They shall say to the elders, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious. He will not obey us. He is a profligate and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his town shall stone him to death. You must purge the evil from among you. All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.

Et cetera, et cetera, ad nauseam.

And it is because of this disregard that the Bible-based opposition to SSM is wretched, disingenuous, poltroonish, in short a disgrace. These cherrypickers have adopted a convenient à la carte system of biblical morality that enables them shun a great deal of divine instruction while selectively invoking their preferred commandments at opportune places to demonstrate a faux moral superiority.

The second argument against SSM is a familiar refrain in American political and social life: The Children. In the United States, The Children have been invoked to try to stop everything from SSM to (counterintuitively) a government-run health care plan. Whenever someone says that we as a society need to think about The Children, what that person really means is that we ought to be thinking about him—specifically, his worldview and all of the prejudices and buffooneries that come with it. After all, “I hate fags,” however dearly held this conviction may be, cannot be presented as a serious argument. Thus, The Children are brought forth in a fraudulent attempt to put a noble face on an otherwise heinously ignoble mug.

During the run-up to last month’s vote in Maine on whether to allow SSM in that state, several anti-SSM commercials ran on radio and television, including this one:

There are a few lessons one could draw from this video, but the two that stand out are:

1. The chief function of marriage is procreation (“What’s marriage for?”)

2. The little girl is disadvantaged because she has two fathers

If, as this ad implies, marriage is for having kids, then we are forced to conclude that impotent men, barren women, and heterosexuals who do not desire children have no more business getting married than homosexuals. This seems like an odd conception of marriage.

The other implication here is that the girl in the ad is entitled to have a mother and a father. However, at this very moment, millions of American children are being reared by single parents, and only have mothers or fathers, but not both. Are these households automatically unfit for children to grow up in? Of course not. So what would be so inappropriate about a household with two fathers? It seems to me that in a given situation, two parents would be better than one. Apparently, the producers of this commercial would rather send this girl back to the orphanage where she presumably came from.

Continuing with The Children theme, here is another idiotic commercial from that campaign:

In other words, it’s best to shield The Children from the reality that there are in fact gay people, for as long as possible. That way when they’re older, they will be able to consider the question of gay rights the way god intended: with extreme ignorance and prejudice, and become, for all intents and purposes, just like the dunderheads in this commercial.

Kids should be taught the gays exist; and not only do they exist, but they’re people just like everybody else. And sometimes they even adopt kids who could use a good home because their heterosexual alcoholic mothers and their heterosexual abusive fathers are incapable of caring for them. The earlier children become acquainted with these facts and are taught that there is nothing wrong with gay people, the less likely they are to treat horribly those children who come from same-sex households.

Whatever the stated rationale for the opposition to SSM may be, ultimately the reason behind it is irrational bigotry and hatred. SSM has been legal in Massachusetts for five and a half years now, and contrary to the prognostications of doom for marriage in the state, the institution itself is alive and well, and has the lowest divorce rate in the country. There has been no collapse of the family. Married men and women are not leaving their spouses to go cavorting and sodomizing in Provincetown. There have been no calls for the legalization of polygamy or demands that people be able to marry donkeys, cats, and trees. To no one’s surprise, none of patently ludicrous predictions prophesied by the bigots have come true—an eventuality they were surely aware of; for nobody could be so dense as to believe that SSM would be a gateway to interspecies marriage. And if they were, it is a wonder that they have not yet died from sheer stupidity. No, most SSM opponents knew full well that nothing of the sort would happen, but they needed to cite “practical” social concerns to justify their absurd hatred of people whose lives they knew—and still know—nothing about.

Since opponents of SSM seek to deny millions of people a basic civil and social right, they are to be regarded with the utmost contempt. The excuse that their faith prohibits them from supporting such a measure is bogus. These people do not stone their children when they misbehave. They do not kill witches. They wear clothes made of two or more materials. And so on the subject of SSM, their religion is merely a convenient front for what is otherwise bald-faced bigotry.

- Max