Why values matter

[Hamlette]

The Greeks used to say we suffer our way to wisdom. The Democrats have been doing most of the electoral suffering, and these days the wisest political analysis comes from Democrats who are trying to figure out what went wrong.

snip

household incomes for people between 26 and 59 and found that the average annual family income is somewhere around $63,000 a year — an impressive figure. Opinion polls consistently show that people at these income levels feel as if they're doing quite well and don't feel oppressed by forces beyond their control.

snip

If you are a middle-class woman, you have more to fear from divorce than from outsourcing. If you have a daughter, you're right to worry more about her having a child before marriage than about her being a victim of globalization. This country's prosperity is threatened more by homes where no one reads to children than it is by big pharmaceutical companies.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan observed that the core conservative truth is that culture matters most, and that the core liberal truth is that government can reshape culture. But liberals have turned culturally libertarian. Afraid to be judgmental about things like family structure, they've dropped out of the core values debate.

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/01/26/opinion/26brooks.html?hp

This is the first explanation from a conservative that makes sense to me...and its from that awful Brooks.

We don't need to stop fighting to make globalization more fair or to make outsourcing less drastic BUT we do need to recognize that these issues don't address our greatest fears. He's absolutely correct about divorce and teen pregnancy. As a mother I can tell you, those are the things you know will have a huge impact on your life RIGHT NOW.

None of us are for divorce. Raising kids in homes with divorced parents is not ideal. (I am NOT promoting the old thought that you stay together for the kids no matter what, even if you are miserable, but I do think that we should recognize that long term commitments are worth more, sometimes, than taking the easy way out and looking for the next thrill.)

And all of us are against teen pregnancy.

The problem is, we have allowed conservative churches to teach these values and they become burdened with judgment. Those are not conservative churchy values. We need to take them back.

Along with other values like respecting people, tolerance, compassion.

(Sorry, but the link probably won't work as it's the premium NYTimes thingie. You can probably get his whole column tomorrow from another source. It's one of a couple of his columns that did not make my head explode.

[Avalux]

1. Interesting - let me say this.

I am a middle-class woman, I fit the description provided here, with teenage daughters. I find this paragraph offensive:

"If you are a middle-class woman, you have more to fear from divorce than from outsourcing. If you have a daughter, you're right to worry more about her having a child before marriage than about her being a victim of globalization. This country's prosperity is threatened more by homes where no one reads to children than it is by big pharmaceutical companies."

I'd like to know why it has to be one or the other? Why do people have to box themselves in and not think about the outside world? I worry about relationships and teenage pregnancy, but I also worry about a whole host of other things outside my own little world. Hopefully I'll pass on that capacity to my children and they won't end up mindless sheeple.

[hfojvt]

2. I never trust it when conservatives give us advice

or is he trying to explain why his side is winning?

This: "household incomes for people between 26 and 59 and found that the average annual family income is somewhere around $63,000 a year — an impressive figure."

sounds like a crock of doodoo to me. Average income is kinda meaningless. GW Bush is under 59 and so am I. Our average income is about $500,000. Median income is the more meaningful number and it is not nearly that high, except for families of four which comprise less than 20% of all households.

I am not sure if he is talking about all families between 26 and 59 or just voting families, which may also show that lower income people do not vote.

It also seems to me that the core conservative "truth" is that conservatives talk about culture and act about economics. Culture talk is just a way to get middle income people to vote against their economic self-interest.

[Justitia]

3. Middle-class women are afraid of their jobs being outsourced!

How ridiculous to say we should be more afraid of divorce - that makes no sense!

If she works and her job is outsourced, the family income is depleted by half.
If she is a stay-at-home mom, THEY NOW HAVE NO INCOME AT ALL. Or health insurance.

People live after divorce, it's a helluva lot harder to live when your house gets repossessed and you can't eat.

If teenager girls were given commonsense info about sexuality and birth control, teen pregnancy would be a much more manageable issue. It helps if she has access to healthcare - maybe via her parents employer sponsored healthcare - if they have a job!

He is trying to spin this into "values" are more important than family economics and it is WRONG.

# 1 cause of divorce - MONEY ISSUES

[Hamlette]

4. but the values issues cause economic problems

divorce and teen pregnancy are the number one and two causes of poverty for women in the US

You can accept the facts, or not.

[Justitia]

5. And what causes divorce? What causes teen pregnancy?

I'm curious as to your viewpoint. Are you trying to say that if people stay married and teen girls don't get pregnant, that family economic problems will disappear? That people don't lose their jobs and healthcare? It seems that is the leap you are making.

Imagine a married couple w/a non-pregnant teen daughter. Dad loses his job.
Now what?

[Hamlette]

7. sex causes pregnancy, divorce has many causes

I'm talking about what people fear.

It is not a lack of money that causes divorce it is fights over money. Rich and middle class people get divorces too.

The biggest causes of poverty for women are divorce and teen pregnancy so yes, I am saying that poverty for women will be less if people stay married and women don't get pregnant in their teens. That will not guarantee that their economic problems will disappear. But neither will stopping globalization or outsourcing. (Although I'm not sure what you mean by economic problems. I'm assuming you mean poverty but then people with rather good incomes have economic problems.)

As to the married couple when dad loses his job, he gets another job. I've lost jobs before and so has my husband. We know we can survive it. I know that sounds cold to you but if you look at the causes of poverty, dad losing his job, in a normal family in america, is not one of them. Divorce and early pregnancy are. You can ignore those facts and think that Ford is the problem (by which I mean mean companies laying people off and outsourcing) but the average american cannot ignore those facts and if we want to win elections we need to start talking about the facts.

If you are a woman at a lowish paying job, or not working at all, with three kids and dad walks out...you've just won the lottery to poverty. If you get pregnant at 15 and keep the kid, your chances are better than even you'll end up poor and never be able to get out. Those last words are important. Chances are you'll never be able to get out. It's where the American dream becomes a nightmare.

You might not like the facts but those are the facts.

What motivates people at the polls is fear.

[Justitia]

8. I see you are making a case for subjective "morality".

I don't believe pushing one person's view of "morality" or the "desirable family structure" onto another person solves ONE SINGLE PROBLEM facing the US today.

This is looking for excuses not to help people we deem have made "inferior choices".

You very cavalierly dismiss a breadwinner losing his job & healthcare as "so what, get another" - wow.

So what do you say to that woman w/3 kids whose husband has just walked out the door?
She has NO CHOICE in the matter. She couldn't possibly have followed your advice to stay married, he doesn't want it. Too bad? Should've found a guy who would have stayed?

We take away a woman's right to choose and now she is 15 and forced into giving birth.
Now what? Too bad? Shouldn't have had sex? Pregnancy & motherhood as punishment goes down a very, very dark road and grim future for those children and society.

Do we just throw these women (& their children) to the wolves because of their "choices"?

[Hamlette]

9. where in anything I wrote did I say we should throw them to the wolves?

where did I say that if someone loses his/her job "so what"?

where did I make a moral judgment of any kind?

where did I say this provides us with an excuse not to help people who make bad choices?

And where did I say we should take away a woman's right to choose?

I'm thinking you think you know who I am. And that image may include someone who does not care about the poor.

I'm not that person.

I was pointing out a fact. Divorce and teen pregnancy are the one and two causes of poverty in women and children. If we can't even recognize a fact anymore because it does not fit with our ideology, we are doomed.

[Sapphire Blue]

6. Hmmm... do middle class MEN also "have more to fear from divorce than...

... from outsourcing"? If you have a SON, are you also right to worry more about him having a child before marriage than about him being a victim of globalization? Would your SON not be as equally affected by the pregnancy?

Typical families today have two incomes; when the family splits, why is it more likely that the woman/wife/mother & children will be affected by poverty than the man/husband/father? Wouldn't enforced equitable child support alleviate the financial circumstances? But, of course, enforced equitable child support is a value that seems of little importance in this patriarchal society... as is equal pay for equal work... as is affirmative action.

Sexist BS.