Monday, August 21, 2006

Reich book

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm reading Robert Reich's book "Reason - Why Liberals Will Win the Battle for America". Here are a couple of quotes I've found so far that I like.

On why radical conservatives obsess about pre-marital sex and the "decline" of marriage.
"Radcons embrace a simple, facile solution to a problem - one size fits all, when of course it doesn't".
This really resonates with me. The right always seems to want yes/no, black/white absolute answers to everything. They see unquestioning belief as a virtue while viewing subtlety and nuance as moral laxity.
"To believe that the best and only way to prevent poor single women from having babies is to instruct young people not to have sex before marriage is like thinking the best way to prevent your house from leaking is to stop the rain."

I love that one. Yes, our roof is leaking, so let's outlaw rain. Great analogy.

This whole business of trying to outlaw sex outside marriage brings me to the anti-abortionists. My take on this is that they care less about unborn children than preventing women from having and (heaven forfend) enjoying sex. Basically, I think they believe that the child is the "punishment" for having sex outside their narrow boundaries of what's proper. Great way to see your child, huh?

More to come...

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