Now CanThey Inhale?

Growing up winger is producing the usual odd lots, and Meghan McCain has emerged as the Great White Hope the GOP seems puzzled about and seemingly would rather stomp out. Today she says breathtakingly obvious things that will surely have the winger camp cringing. The obvious has long been seen here and other blogs that point out facts like ... abortions can be prevented by sex education lots better than by enjoining kids to abstain. See; the Republican convention.

Nice timing on newly rational observations on sex, if you want to see the dead walking or lies gaining new currency. Frankly, I am annoyed that anyone would be trying to give new life to the very ideology that we will be digging out from under for longer than she's been out of training pants.

When it comes to sex, politicians face all sorts of double standards: who is allowed to have sex with whom, what constitutes sex, and whether it’s appropriate, to name a few. Candie’s Foundation’s announcement that they were partnering with Bristol Palin to promote an abstinence-only campaign has caused me to reflect on my own experiences as a political daughter, and the role sex plays in defining the Republican Party.

Let me get something straight: Bristol Palin, as an 18-year-old adult, is free to make her own choices and decide how she wants her life to unfold. But for whatever reasons, the American public and media remain overly engrossed in our politicians’ sex lives and, as in this case, those of their families. There’s an especially unhealthy attitude among conservatives. Daughters of Republican politicians aren’t expected to have sex, let alone enjoy it—as if there were some strange chastity belt automatically attached to us female offspring. God forbid anyone talk realistically about life experiences and natural, sexual instincts. Nope, the answer is always abstinence.
(snip)
Here’s what I’ve never understood about the party: its resistance to discussing better access to birth control. As a Republican, I am pro-life. But using birth control and having an abortion are not the same at all. Actually, the best way to prevent abortions is to educate people about birth control and make it widely and easily accessible.

Facts are nice, but using facts to support the ideology that wants to condemn them just doesn't work for me, somehow. Yes, gay marriage is a great improvement over denying rights to members of society, but admitting to that fact is hardly an argument for promoting the party that fights against equality under the law.

I might just as well rant about misuse of unemployment insurance by job seekers who would really rather keep looking - on the funds taken out of their paychecks - rather than take temporary jobs that aren't the answer to their employment problems. The permanent, wellpaid job, came along and paid society and me better than 'temping'. Still, for wingnuts, that's shirking. Like arguments against sex education, the ideological argument insists on a choice that has worse results than the opposite, rational, choice.

Taking a stand against an aspect of my own ideology would make the point that us DFH's can see the other side. Still, accepting one complication doesn't promote the party that's actually responsible for the economic problems of this depression, which include underemployment. In the same way, I think if you are going to say the winger choice is wrong, it's not an endorsement of the wingnut ideology because you see through it.

Facts have a liberal bias. Accepting the facts while rejecting liberalism is just another wingnut irrationality.

Sorry, kids, having seen the light doesn't absolve the party that wants to smack down that light. It means you broke out, but the wingnut corral is still the wrong place for any representatives of public interest.

Just like her dad's promotion of the party of torture undercuts his opposition to torture itself, Meghan McCain's admission that her party doesn't get it makes her factual analysis of winger sexual denial more wrong, and hypocritical, not less.