Justin Rosario Pits Sex Ed Against Misogyny

When I was growing up, there seemed to be a general attitude about paternity that in retrospect seems to have transcended the usual ideological boundaries.  It seemed to appeal to liberal feminists and social conservatives alike. The way I usually heard it expressed:  "If a man didn't want to take care of a baby, he should've kept it in his pants."  Last year I came across a little skirmish in the culture war, in which a vitriolic blogger named Justin Rosario distinguishes between pro-lifers who differ with him on two counts and those who differ on one.  The former are, in his opinion, vile misogynists, as you will be able to read in the back-and-forth comments in that post.  

Click picture to enlarge.

The exchange in question apparently got I find this meme a little ironic in this context, because progressives want to force the average working parents and the average middle class parents to send their kids to public school.  If this has any negative effects on the unwed birth rate, then more sex education, more Planned Parenthood graft-driven progressive teaching on sexuality, more government intervention into the shaping of our kids.  The progressives and their ineptocrats help create the problem, take away the options for fixing the problem, and then say, "Ah this proves you need even more of our help!"

Which is similar to what the meme is saying about conservatives.  (It conflates pro-lifers with social conservatives with fiscal conservatives, but hey.)  Based on the meme, one would think that Pro-Choice logic would be consistent with allowing parents to kill children who were less than 1 year old (or whatever age the government's wisdom happened to dictate).  It would certainly mean more food and services for the rest of us.  A lot of problems getting solved. (In fact, that has been the "fourth-trimester abortion" idea that was gaining momentum before the Gosnell horrors.)  In fact we could even give a tax break to those who liquidate their "genetic assets."  Then the government would have that much more to spend on the children that people actually want.

While it's a larger topic requiring a lot more time and energy, suffice it to say that progressives/liberals either do not think that sexual mores among youth changed much between the 50s and 60s, or they think that the changes are due to something other the moral chaos of modern liberalism (i.e. progressive libertinism), or they consider it an inscrutable matter for the sociologists to theorize about. The only answer to this at any rate, in the liberal mind it seems, is increased state involvement in sex education, with the government talking over the sex education because the two-working-parent progressive economy (which would send a tingle up Marx' leg, and Hitler's too) is failing to control unwed births.

Rosario supposedly has a little respect for those silly pro-lifers who, misguided as they are about when life begins, agree to the government takeover of shaping the sexuality of our youth.  (Though I'm sure he can find any number other reasons to hate them if they are socially or fiscally conservative in any way--which is what his site is devoted to.)  Parents, you had your chance!  So even parents who are actually would otherwise do a good job of it, have their roles essentially taken over.  (As Ed Asner would say, "It's the only waaaaaay!")

In Rosario's mind, the pro-lifer either accepts progressive sexual education as legitimate "abortion prevention" or he/she is a misogynist who is out to punish women mercilessly for their sins.  I'm not making this up.  It is interesting because Rosario is trying to expose something he perceives to be in the conservative mind, but what he is really showing is a tactic that has become a habit of thought: the tactic is forcing people to choose between accepting progressive education and being labeled mysogynistic; the cognitive habit is reducing a sense of personal responsibility to a sort of punitive Puritanism.

People like demonizer-at-large Rosario think it's inhumane to "punish" a woman with nine months of pregnancy for a little mistake, but that it's okay to punish a man with many years of servitude/debt for a mistake--if the woman decides on her own to keep the child (in essence creating a de facto "marriage" in which the man has responsibilities but the wife as all the monetary benefits).  This arrangement is just fine in the progressive mind, one supposes, because a man can be held accountable for his actions when he should've "kept it in his pants", whereas a woman can only be a helpless victim of her mistakes.  One wonders whether Rosario would be as offended by the phrase "kept it in his pants" as he would be offended by the phrase "she should've kept her legs together."

Try not to take it too seriously though.  Rosario's bile is the just new elevated tone in Washington.  He probably really believes in his cause so much that he can't believe that one can honestly not want babies to be killed willy-nilly and yet disagree with liberal social policies of state-commandeered morality, to also want a sense of personal accountability.  TO these people, we're all just mean-spirited woman-punishers leading the charge in the War on Women™ (brought to you by CNN).  Rosario's style sort of reminds me of those who want to argue with you about your religion, but not to persuade you, only to feel so good about how right they are... except with a lot more venom:

 Rosario's logo

I find Rosario's logo ironic, since this is exactly the basis on which President Obama was peddled to America the second time around. Boil away all the rhetoric and this is the attitude of the Left: oppose us and that means you are selfish.  Yet they did little but appeal to people's selfishness in 2012.  This idea in this logo is a marketing tool turned way of thinking.  I also find it disingenuous in a deeper sense.  All this consolidation of power at higher levels for "the greater good" is supposedly by the will and consent of the people.  And yet, if that were true, there are enough liberals of every income bracket to make their own charities for healthcare, education, what have you. Participation could be voluntary.  The enormous funds that fed Obama's second campaign are enough to show that.

Statism: Ideas so good they must be mandatory.