Oh my God, I agree with Ann Coulter...

The subject of women who can't find healthy relationships having children deliberately came up. I remember this subject arising a couple of years ago, and it's important enough to address it again.

Remember that I believe a couple of things:

1) Healthy people can find healthy relationships.

2) One of the simplest, most powerful things that makes a difference in a child's life is being raised in a two-parent home. That single thing is such an indicator in regard to poverty, crime, and teenaged pregnancy, as well as drug use and success in education.

Now, given that I believe these things, how could I possibly approve of a woman choosing to deliberately get pregnant without a partner? Given the two basic things I believe, I would have to conclude that:

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1) She has avoided doing the work necessary to heal herself, is actually unable to do so.

2) The chances are that she does NOT take responsibility for her problems, blaming it on "there aren't any good men," etc. I can't see how being unable or unwilling to have a healthy relationship with an adult is qualification to have a child.

3) Not only will she not have as many resources available to the child, but she will pass her poisonous attitudes on. I shudder to think of the unconscious attitudes about men and manhood passed to the little boys and/or girls in her care.

ﾠNoting that single parents are more likely to raise children who seem incapable of forming healthy bonded relationships--men who have "baby mommas" rather than wives. Women who have "baby daddies" not husbands, it is clear that there is a chain of damage that goes on and on.

ﾠBut, you might ask, doesn't a woman have a right to her own body? Well, I never said I wanted to make it illegal. I said I think it's chickenshit, and incredibly selfish, treating a baby like a living doll, an object to project your love and need onto. And if she isn't financially stable enough to adopt, then what the hell are we saying? She isn't healthy enough to create a relationship with another human being, isn't solvent enough to convince the state she'd make a good adoptive parent...but I'm supposed to feel more sympathy for her than I do for the kid she will be supporting, nurturing, and passing her values and/or poverty to?

I won't vote against her right to do it, but I'll be damned if I'll give my approval. Human relationships are, after survival itself, probably the most common thing on this planet. Healthy people have healthy relationships. We can heal ourselves. It just isn't that hard to have a relationship, and every time I see people with a horrid history there, I see people who lie to themselves, con themselves, expect to get more than they're willing to give, blame others for their own issues.

I care FAR less for the whims of an adult man or woman (and please remember the zero respect I have for men who do not care for, or raise their children) than I do for the welfare for the innocent boys and girls just starting their lives.

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This is one of the things I LOVE about Bill Cosby. He said exactly what I believe concerning parental responsibility. I've lost count of the women who got knocked up having unprotected sex with near-strangers, then down the road when those kids run the streets whining "I did the best I could!" No, you didn't. You could have kept your damned legs together, or insisted he wear a rubber, or get better birth control. Don't you dare tell me you did your best.

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This is bad enough in the white community. But in the black community, it is suicide and murder. We don't have as much of a safety net, and if we want our children to survive we MUST have more "conservative" values. To insist on the "right" to have children despite our inability to create a healthy relationship is operating on the animal level at worst, the child level at best. And children cannot raise children. This is my attitude, and I won't back down from it even an inch. Any action that makes the world safer for children is "good." And the actions that increase their risk is "bad." An oversimplification, and I'm sure there are exceptions, but this ain't one of them.

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Watched Bush leave the field, heard the boos, and felt sad. I've taken a huge raft of shit about this over the years, but I'll say it again: I don't believe Bush is a bad man, and I don't think he's stupid. I think he was over his head, that the Peter Principle kicked in big time, and didn't have the kind of synthesizing intellect necessary to resolve multiple inputs into singular decisions. As a result, he trusted "gut hunches" which were based on a model of a world that doesn't exist any more, and ideological positions about "Trickle Down" and "Government doesn't work" that were, without nuance, simply disastrous. I could be wrong about this, but my honest belief is that he wanted to be a good president. A great president. He wanted to serve the country, but didn't test his reality map constantly and effectively. 9/11 gave him an avalanche of power and authority, at a time when a delicate hand was needed more than a sledgehammer. When our better angels were subdued by a call to wreak havoc on those who had hurt us. I think that he was of a class of people, and surrounded by a class of people, who honestly believed that the wealthy and powerful aren't just wealthier and more powerful than the rest of us, but BETTER and more trustworthy.

I've known enough people who feel that way, but are simultaneously good and decent people, that it causes little stress to extend that to this man. God, I'm glad to see him go. I think the country sustained genuine damage under his watch...but if I'm fair, and I try to be, I give the sitting president responsibility for everything that happens after his first year, with some wiggle-room after the first six months. Was he responsible for 9/11? There is honest room for disagreement, but my answer is "No." I think that that one was a brilliant stroke, out of left field, and Monday-morning quarterbacking identifying a document talking about airplanes and Osama, out of the countless hundreds of thousands of documents coming through the White House, is ignoring the fact that no one believes something can happen until something like it happens, and nothing quite like it had ever happened before, anywhere. So, no, I don't blame him. And it is only fair to give him some of the credit for no other Al Queda attacks on American soil since then. But man oh man...I've got plenty of other stuff to blame him for, more than I know of any other President of my lifetime. We are in a terrible situation, but you know? It isn't Bush's fault for being elected. It's our fact for electing him. It's our fault for having a system where the son of a better man can piggy-back on Daddy's wealth and rolodex and take the helm of the ship of state. He wasn't a President: he was a prince. He inherited his office. If he'd had to do the work to get there from nothing...like, say, Obama did...he would have been a better, stronger, smarter man. And it is quite possible that he had the potential to be that man. He just didn't have to be.

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We can't afford that. Ever again. I don't know what the hell you do about that, because power wants to perpetuate itself, and pass itself to children and grandchildren. But I feel nothing but sadness at the jeering and shoe-throwing. I don't like seeing anyone treated that way, even if I understand the emotions behind the response.

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Maybe, like Hannibal Lector, I simply abhor discourtesy.