Provocative speculation on the cause of all this. Some corner seems to have been turned, though nobody's saying where. It's still mostly entertainment industry types, affirming the hinterland's broadly-held presumption that show people are filth... Oh my!
Crid
at November 11, 2017 2:58 AM
There's this fascinating feeling of scores being settled, even if one isn't actually in the game.
Done. I would say to the mainstreamers this and only this: what have you done for us lately? Yes, I know, that seems unfair, but to quote another source to whom much is given, much is expected.
I R A Darth Aggie
at November 11, 2017 7:01 AM
You juswanna shout at them: Have you ever even *met* a Trump voter? Ever buy a beer for one? ~ Crid at November 11, 2017 3:50 AM
The answer, for most of them, is not a simple no, but a complex series of verbal gyrations intended to show their contempt for Trump and his voters without being obvious about it.
And beer? Perhaps a nice chardonnay or a crisp sauvignon blanc with a cheese plate. Or they might ironically consume a PBR (although, hipsters really ought to look up that word and start using it correctly).
Conan the Grammarian
at November 11, 2017 7:44 AM
> this and only this: what have
> you done for us lately?
Most of these people have never done anything for anyone, which is the point of their careers: To be judged as superior without regard to metrics of their own performance (i.e. & e.g., their capacity to generate wealth... Their profits). No, their failure of insight can be attributed their failure to associate with others outside their background.
This is essentially identical to Amy's endless pontificating about religions, Christianity and Islam in particular, without conversation with a practitioner.
In both cases, the Prime Directive is to avoid soiling oneself in encounters with the actual human beings under discussion.
Crid
at November 11, 2017 9:30 AM
See also. Complete this reading before Monday's lecture.
This can't be so! Our wise and benevolent betters have told us otherwise!
mpetrie98
at November 11, 2017 11:29 AM
> The answer, for most of them,
> is not a simple no, but a complex
> series of verbal gyrations intended
> to show their contempt for Trump
> and his voters without being
> obvious about it.
First impulse was to say you're wrong, because so very many voices, including people whose expertise I might otherwise respect unreservedly, regard the Trump administration as churning opportunity to affirm their own greater integrity and expertise.
But the ones who are noisiest in that way —and I mean noisiest in both senses, loud and incomprehensible— aren't actually the policy elites under discussion. The elites described in the NatRev piece are dumbfounded; since WWII, their superior test scores and social allegiances have guaranteed their success in government as a career, not just a few months or years of Cincinnatus-style gigging. No one has ever suggested to them that the rules might change. They didn't know they'd ever need bother expressing social contempt (though I'll admit that some of the smirking chatter during the Dubya years may have confused us on this point).
So you're right.
But both the befuddled elites and the street-squealers evince a tragic absence of humility.
Trump/Brexit is a meaningful and not necessarily comforting change in the direction of Western Civ. Everyone ought to be on their best behavior, and neither of these parties is moving very graciously.
As a result, they put forth a "prolier than thou" front - no judgement and no condemnation of self destructive behaviors in others. While at home, the elites may engage in behaviors that advance their socio-economic condition, i.e., saving money, finishing their education, getting married before having children - but in pubic they "refuse to preach what they themselves actually practice. They are terrified of being judgmental, of seeming elitist. And so the hallmark of an elitist these days is to pretend you’re not one."
One cannot condemn a gun-toting Trump voter without incurring charges of elitism, the greatest fear of the elite.
One must be the type of politician with whom Joe Six-Pack could hoist a beer at his local tavern; and not a craft-brewed stout, but a mass-produced pilsner available in stores everywhere in cans and bottles.
Likewise, one cannot condemn the self-destructive profligate child-bearing of the poor, one must celebrate single motherhood as if each woman bearing a child out of wedlock is a wealthy attorney who tired of a string of unacceptable suitors and simply had Biff down at the country club contribute some of his genetic material - rather than acknowledge her as an unemployed high school drop-out who got knocked up by a drug dealing wannabe rapper after a night of bad decisions all around.
That would invite charges of elitism. And we cannot have that; we cannot be that.
So, we've turned the country into one in which any behavior, no matter how destructive, is "a choice" and cannot be condemned, lest the scold be seen as a judgmental snob.
Social striving through hard work and sensible decisions (once known as delayed gratification) is passé and wallowing in a swamp of victimhood surrounded by the evidence of serial bad decisions is the only acceptable behavior.
One can be forgiven for making a series of bad decisions, but not for pointing that the decisions were bad or that the sufferer's current misery is the direct result of those bad decisions.
Everyone is allowed one mistake, except that we cannot acknowledge it as a mistake; and the same mistake gets repeated ad infinitum without anyone allowed to cry "stop doing that!"
Conan the Grammarian
at November 11, 2017 12:46 PM
And the Senate Bill isn't really any better, but what do you expect with the GOP-e tards that are in charge of Congress?
mpetrie98
at November 11, 2017 12:58 PM
A question Conan. Which 'elites' are you talking about. There are the government employed elites or mainstreemers as Dougherty put it. There are the wall street elites. There are the religious elites. That is just in this country and I've certainly forgotten a few. Most of those groups aren't that elite. In fact many of them are down right hostile to any sort of meritocracy because they know their only merits are friends and relatives.
As for your description of single mothers, 50% of the kids born this year were born to single mothers. Only 15% of Americans are high school dropouts. So those numbers don't add up. Like it or not single motherhood is normal these days. Still stupid and depressing but normal none the less.
Ben
at November 11, 2017 2:09 PM
Like it or not single motherhood is normal these days. Still stupid and depressing but normal none the less. ~ Ben at November 11, 2017 2:09 PM
I believe you mean that 50% of children this year will have parents who are not married - mostly through divorce. The single mother hood rate has not yet reached 50% overall. It has for minorities, however, which is driving much of the moratorium on speaking ill of it. Overall, 40.3% of all children born in the US are born to unwed mothers.
Generationally, the numbers are even scarier. 57% of children born to Millennials are born to unwed mothers.
And how many of those 15% are from single mothers? Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.
It used to be a politician could say that single motherhood was a bad idea and most of the public would agree. Today, the media will condemn that politician as elitist and judgmental and the public will concur.
We've become so afraid of being labeled elitist that we've embraced lower class behavior as normal. And we're paying a price for it. Our math and science scores (and proficiency) as a country are slipping.
We've turned ourselves into Idiocracy. How much longer before we're watering our plants with energy drinks and electing a wrestler president?
Conan the Grammarian
at November 11, 2017 3:57 PM
> Like it or not single motherhood
> is normal these days. Still stupid
> and depressing but normal
> none the less.
That thing where someone tries to sound wizened and world-weary but mostly seems goofy or morally illiterate.
I especially like the way this tweet recommended the article linked earlier today.
Crid
at November 11, 2017 5:50 PM
Have you ever even *met* a Trump voter? Ever buy a beer for one?
I wrote this just after the election last year after voting for Trump
And it seems I was right on every score
To all my liberal friends horrified by a Trump presidency, a few points to consider
1. He has no support form his own party in congress
2. Democrats in congress will now be invested in clawing back much of the power they gave up to the executive branch
3. He has no tact so you'll always know what he is up to
4. Until he ran as a republican he was considered by all to be a liberal
5. That means he is just as open to bribery as the woman you voted for
6. With a republican in the white house the press and liberals in the citizenry will once more care about things like NSA spying on americans, warrantless wiretaps, carte blanche FISA warrants, american troop in the middle east, free speech. You know all the civil liberty violations they protested under Bush but ignored under Obama
7. With no one in congress supporting him and congress fighting amongst themselves they wont have the energy to pass as many pointless tens of thousands of regulations that turn us all into criminals
8. Plus with the delusional people in the GOP who actually think Trump is a good person for the job trying to take over the GOP it could very well split permanently damaging that political party
"That thing where someone tries to sound wizened and world-weary but mostly seems goofy or morally illiterate."
"Twenty one thousand drunk driving deaths each and every year is "stupid and depressing but normal none the less.""
Yes Crid. That is normal. It has been that way for quite a while. But as usual you don't have an argument. Only emotion.
Conan, You are right I flubbed the numbers. But at 40% that is still pretty much a definition of normal. Or common place if you wish. It isn't just high school dropouts. College educated people are headed down that path in significant numbers. Two to three decades ago you would have been right in your characterization of single mothers. But things have changed.
The hilarious thing is I keep seeing people like Lenona arguing that women want this. That women are refusing to marry and choosing single motherhood. I've got more respect for women's intelligence than that. As Crid's links and common sense point out being a single mother sucks. You have to be pretty stupid to choose that.
Ben
at November 11, 2017 6:10 PM
> That is normal. It has been
> that way for quite a while.
Muffin, follow the link— The number's been cut in half in a single generation.
Christ knows how much better this planet would be if ninnies weren't so proud of being listlessly cynical.
Crid
at November 11, 2017 6:42 PM
20 years is a short period of time?
Ben
at November 11, 2017 8:07 PM
I have to take a second stab at this. For one, your complaint was my characterization of time? Seriously? Crid, you need to learn to complain clearly instead of verbosely. There was no possible way for someone to get that from what you wrote. Secondly, a single generation? From boomers to millenials isn't a single generation. Boomers starts around 1940. Millenials start around 1980. That is 40 years. So yeah, it's been this way for quite a while. 40 years by your reckoning.
Ben
at November 11, 2017 8:18 PM
Ben, that’s my point. Perhaps I did not make it well. We defined deviancy down for decades. And no one was allowed to argue against it, so now it has become commonplace. And that has been destructive to society. We are no longer an aspirational culture.
Conan the Grammarian
at November 11, 2017 9:12 PM
I understood and agreed with your overall point Conan. My counter point was that your characterizations were about a decade or two old. From the source to your news article there is not much difference between high school dropouts and those with degrees or even those with some college. (22%, 19%, 17% for whites). You only see a significant drop with the completion of college (7% for whites). But the reality is this is only moderately effective. Even among college degree holders single motherhood is rising.
I also note the data you quoted in the article is from 2015, not 2017. I may be correct that single mothers are at 50% this year. This tends to follow a pretty steep curve over time. By 2030 whites should have followed hispanics and be around 60-70%.
Ben
at November 12, 2017 5:41 AM
> There was no possible way for
> someone to get that from what
> you wrote.
My writing is clear as crystal, only not for racist goofs who think they already know all the world's truths. Learn to read, learn to count, and be in touch... Quietly, politely.
Crid
at November 12, 2017 6:14 AM
"As for your description of single mothers, 50% of the kids born this year were born to single mothers. Only 15% of Americans are high school dropouts. So those numbers don't add up."
They shouldn't. You've mixed two seperate concepts.
"15% of Americans" would be everyone in the country, of whatever age. Comparing that to this year's crop is thus meaningless.
Radwaste
at November 12, 2017 11:15 AM
Don't be dense Rad. Single mothers aren't only or even mainly high school dropouts. The men that father their children aren't as well. Conan may have been correct a few decades ago. He isn't today. Things have already changed. As proof, the data Conan quoted.
Ben
at November 12, 2017 5:28 PM
Ben, i wasn't saying that high school dropouts are single mothers or that single mothers are mostly high school dropouts. I was saying that children of single mothers are more likely to be high school dropouts. And that is true today as well as decades ago.
Conan the Grammarian
at November 12, 2017 6:36 PM
That may be what you intended Conan. But it certainly isn't what you wrote.
"one must celebrate single motherhood as if each woman bearing a child out of wedlock is a wealthy attorney who tired of a string of unacceptable suitors and simply had Biff down at the country club contribute some of his genetic material - rather than acknowledge her as an unemployed high school drop-out who got knocked up by a drug dealing wannabe rapper after a night of bad decisions all around."
From the dataset you quoted, 66% of mothers with no highschool diploma are unmarried, 59% of those with a HS diploma, 43% with some college, and 10% of those with a college degree. This is for the total US population back in 2015.
And to answer Rad's issue, despite some characterizations the poors aren't outbreeding everyone else. No HS diploma mothers match their percentage of the population at 15% of the births. Those with only a HS diploma were 25%, those with some college were 30%, and those with a college degree were 30%. These are of total births not percentage of single mother births.
I actually agree with you Conan about how important the traditional american nuclear family is for both raising kids and stabilizing society. And I understand you were getting a bit emotional and hyperbolic. But even with your hyperbole you were still several decades behind. This type of data historically looks much like a step function. Over a 20 year period (essentially a generation) things shift from one extreme to the other. At this point words or leadership from 'elites' is far too little too late. Without massive changes to family law you aren't going to see any improvement. You probably have to make massive changes to the education system as well. Anything less than that is irrelevant. You may as well try and empty the ocean with a tea spoon.
Ben
at November 13, 2017 6:30 AM
...one must celebrate single motherhood as if each woman bearing a child out of wedlock is a wealthy attorney who tired of a string of unacceptable suitors and simply had Biff down at the country club contribute some of his genetic material - rather than acknowledge her as an unemployed high school drop-out who got knocked up by a drug dealing wannabe rapper after a night of bad decisions all around.
Um, no Ben.
What I said there is that you're no longer allowed to tell the woman that she's wrong and that she's putting her child at a disadvantage, making him/her likely to drop out of school.
You, as a politician or academic or even private citizen are not allowed to tell her that she's wrong. You must accept that it's her choice or her culture or some other such nonsense. We've defined deviancy down and have been doing so for decades.
That's why you see single motherhood numbers growing. We've allowed it, and all its attendant problems, to become the norm.
Conan the Grammarian
at November 13, 2017 7:56 AM
Lower class behavior is now considered the norm; has been allowed to become the norm.
That was my whole point, Ben. Yes, the numbers are different now, college-educated women are becoming single mothers. And their children are probably just as likely to have difficulty in school and society and become drop-outs.
Muffy from the club may be able to overcome many of the difficulties of single motherhood with generous child support from Biff and a host of tutors and social engagements for her child. But the unemployed waitress with the wannabe rapper baby-daddy will not.
We can pretend all single mothers are Muffy and excuse our own laxity in allowing single motherhood to become the norm, but that won't change the fact that children of single mothers face a series of struggles that children with two involved parents won't face.
We let lower class behavior become the norm; we no longer strive to achieve socio-economic status, but victimhood.
That same college-educated single mother is going to insist on receiving government assistance for her single motherhood and since we allowed it to be the norm, we're stuck with the bill.
Conan the Grammarian
at November 13, 2017 8:11 AM
I still say your words don't say what you intended them to say. And in fact you are continuing that practice with your characterization of the wannabe rapper baby-daddy. I look around in my generation and who are the baby-daddies? Electronic technician, lineman, store security agent (loss prevention), and a truck driver. Those are only the ones I can name from my life right off the top of my head. You are talking about 40% of the population. There just aren't enough wannabe rappers to go around. But we can agree to disagree on that.
I also disagree we allowed lower class behavior to become the norm. We did far more than that and incentivised it in law. Why did welfare recipients abandon marriage decades ago? Because we setup well meaning but destructive laws in place. We essentially paid women to divorce their husbands. The same has extended up the economic scale. Well meaning but destructive laws mean women can divorce for no reason whatsoever and keep most of the economic benefits of marriage. So through the 80s and 90s you saw a huge level of divorce go on. And now in the 2000s and 2010s those divorce numbers have plummeted because far fewer men are willing to sign up for an inevitable and inequitable divorce. In order to turn things around those laws on both divorce and even more significantly child custody have to change. In addition we have to change our schools which indoctrinate those poor behaviors. And after all of that is done we still have to wait for ~20 years. People are very habitual. You will need a new generation of people who learn new habits before much change will take place.
Ben
at November 13, 2017 11:26 AM
"And beer? Perhaps a nice chardonnay or a crisp sauvignon blanc with a cheese plate."
The 1980s called. They want their foam trucker hat back.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at November 13, 2017 1:32 PM
We did far more than that and incentivised it in law. ... You will need a new generation of people who learn new habits before much change will take place. ~ Ben at November 13, 2017 11:26 AM
On the stuff in that paragraph, we agree.
Conan the Grammarian
at November 13, 2017 1:39 PM
The hilarious thing is I keep seeing people like Lenona arguing that women want this. That women are refusing to marry and choosing single motherhood. I've got more respect for women's intelligence than that. As Crid's links and common sense point out being a single mother sucks. You have to be pretty stupid to choose that.
Ben at November 11, 2017 6:10 PM
________________________________________________
I have no idea what the exact stats are, but I'd be foolish to suggest that the reasons for single motherhood are the same at each class level - and I never have.
It also depends a great deal on what AGE we're talking about, regarding the individual. Few well-off teen girls give birth IF they become pregnant - unless they're very religious. According to one memoir, a great many would-be adoptive parents who don't want to adopt any child other than a healthy baby stress the importance of religion in their lives, for precisely that reason. Poor girls tend not to give up their babies for adoption. How many of them INTENDED to get pregnant, I don't know. But I'd guess most didn't. The main reasons they keep them are, they don't want to risk regretting adoption (a lifelong trauma), and they very often have no real futures to prepare for anyway, unlike middle-class girls, so motherhood is the only solid path to respect and adulthood they can see.
Middle-class WOMEN mostly don't want to be single mothers, of course. Some, however, prefer being the absolute bosses in the family, which is one reason they choose that path even before they get pregnant. (I have two very well-educated friends who did that.)
I have no idea which path lesbians tend to choose, if they want children in the first place - and plenty still don't. From humorist Fran Lebowitz in an interview, on gay marriage:
"My main feeling is, I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t make noise. I don’t care if people want to get married, they can get married, you know, as long as it’s not mandatory… I, as a single person who pays taxes, I think it’s unfair that anyone is allowed to get married, from a money point of view… It seems to me that the arguments are either about money, or about visiting people in hospitals, neither of which I find that sexy, to tell you the truth. To me, not having to be with someone else in the hospital? Perfect! Great! 'I’d love to meet you in the hospital, but unfortunately, I can’t.' That would be more my stance. I don’t want to have to visit you in the hospital. But as far as all of these financial advantages, I don’t see why that’s fair."
Q: "Single people should get them too?"
A: "No one should get them!"
(end)
It's safe to say Fran's always welcomed not being expected to have children either. Being a baby-boomer lesbian may well make her different from younger ones.
And finally, regarding working-class WOMEN (including white women) who pretty much choose single motherhood, see this book:
"Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage" by Kathryn Edin and Maria J. Kefalas (2005)
The authors claim, IIRC, that many poor women simply feel that it's better to be a single mother on welfare than never to be a mother at all, and given the lack of job opportunities and shortage of men with non-criminal records, they don't feel they have a choice. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have gotten married if they thought they COULD find a good man within their class and social circle.
lenona
at November 13, 2017 5:12 PM
"Don't be dense Rad."
I'm not, not being the one who conflated all people in America with a single year's output of unwed mothers. Get a grip.
Radwaste
at November 13, 2017 10:55 PM
Lenona, I could be wrong but I remember you making the argument that women choose to be single mothers. Though you probably did it in your usual way of presenting someone else's words so you could disavow them when needed. I also don't claim there aren't any women who enthusiastically choose single motherhood over marriage. But as far as I can tell the numbers are small enough to ignore. Same with lesbians. There just aren't that many lesbians to begin with. Same for Conan's Muffy. All of those groups lumped together probably account for under 3% of the population. Meanwhile 97% choose single motherhood because it was a choice between single motherhood and never having children. Marriage was not an option.
In my personal life I know of one woman who refused to get married but still had a kid with a guy. She intentionally chose unwed motherhood. Humorously she is currently married to that guy and it looks like they will be married for life. At the same time I know six women who sometimes claim they chose single motherhood but the reality is no one was proposing. The men in their lives weren't dumb enough to marry them. Though they were dumb enough to have kids with them. Make of that what you will.
A third case a smart guy like Conan is going to have to help classify for me. Guy had a kid with someone else's wife. Everyone knows he is the father but she and hubby didn't split. So she isn't an unwed mother. Just that hubby isn't the father. My cousin couldn't figure out why everyone wasn't as happy and proud as he was when he took the kid to family gatherings. Just couldn't figure out what the issue might be. What can I say, cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Yes Rad. You were being intentionally dense.
Ben
at November 14, 2017 6:25 AM
Lenona, I could be wrong but I remember you making the argument that women choose to be single mothers.
_________________________________
Kindly dig up the exact thread and then we'll talk. Any fool knows that plenty of teens - and women - never intended to get pregnant in the first place, but changed their original plans as to what they would do if they accidentally got pregnant. Doesn't mean a strong minority of girls and women who planned it from the start don't exist, and it makes no sense for anyone to ignore that phenomenon - so, many writers have pointed it out. Another such writer I mentioned a while back was WaPo journalist Leon Dash, who wrote "When Children Want Children." (Both he and his subjects are black, FWIW.)
And for those who argue that there's no such thing as a woman who "accidentally" gets pregnant, it's possible for even TWO contraceptives to fail at once. Not to mention that, no matter what sex ed teachers might teach, most people seem to think that if the woman is on the Pill, there's no need for an extra contraceptive. Sorry, t'ain't true. The real-life failure rate is 5-6%.
lenona
at November 14, 2017 5:23 PM
"Yes Rad. You were being intentionally dense."
Your comment isn't even in the ballpark of "correct" until a graph showing the change in population {single mothers/all mothers, reproduction rate/ditto, elapsed time} is generated, preferably with distribution data to show the actual effect on cities vs. suburbs, to connect the two. They are that far apart.
Choose your words more carefully and you can produce sentences that stand alone.
Radwaste
at November 15, 2017 1:02 AM
Still insisting on being dense, eh Rad? I've already shown my statement is correct. If you want to prove me wrong you need to provide data showing that. The burden of further proof is on you not me.
Ain't he a stinkah???
Police: Suspect's overwhelming gas shuts down interrogation
mpetrie98 at November 11, 2017 12:07 AM
A convenient, hour-by-hour manifest.
Crid at November 11, 2017 2:04 AM
Provocative speculation on the cause of all this. Some corner seems to have been turned, though nobody's saying where. It's still mostly entertainment industry types, affirming the hinterland's broadly-held presumption that show people are filth... Oh my!
Crid at November 11, 2017 2:58 AM
There's this fascinating feeling of scores being settled, even if one isn't actually in the game.
Fun Roy Moore anecdote.
Crid at November 11, 2017 3:08 AM
The contemporary mind Part 1.
The contemporary mind Part 2.
Crid at November 11, 2017 3:16 AM
Were you my student, and I honestly think you ought to be, I would assign this reading.
You juswanna shout at them: Have you ever even *met* a Trump voter? Ever buy a beer for one?
Crid at November 11, 2017 3:50 AM
Poor put upon dog.
https://twitter.com/TheWorldOfFunny/status/928306550107770887/video/1
I R A Darth Aggie at November 11, 2017 6:49 AM
I would assign this reading.
Done. I would say to the mainstreamers this and only this: what have you done for us lately? Yes, I know, that seems unfair, but to quote another source to whom much is given, much is expected.
I R A Darth Aggie at November 11, 2017 7:01 AM
The answer, for most of them, is not a simple no, but a complex series of verbal gyrations intended to show their contempt for Trump and his voters without being obvious about it.
And beer? Perhaps a nice chardonnay or a crisp sauvignon blanc with a cheese plate. Or they might ironically consume a PBR (although, hipsters really ought to look up that word and start using it correctly).
Conan the Grammarian at November 11, 2017 7:44 AM
> this and only this: what have
> you done for us lately?
Most of these people have never done anything for anyone, which is the point of their careers: To be judged as superior without regard to metrics of their own performance (i.e. & e.g., their capacity to generate wealth... Their profits). No, their failure of insight can be attributed their failure to associate with others outside their background.
This is essentially identical to Amy's endless pontificating about religions, Christianity and Islam in particular, without conversation with a practitioner.
In both cases, the Prime Directive is to avoid soiling oneself in encounters with the actual human beings under discussion.
Crid at November 11, 2017 9:30 AM
See also. Complete this reading before Monday's lecture.
Crid at November 11, 2017 9:32 AM
Democrats, right?
You know . . . Democrats!
mpetrie98 at November 11, 2017 11:18 AM
Wait . . . WHAT???
This can't be so! Our wise and benevolent betters have told us otherwise!
mpetrie98 at November 11, 2017 11:29 AM
> The answer, for most of them,
> is not a simple no, but a complex
> series of verbal gyrations intended
> to show their contempt for Trump
> and his voters without being
> obvious about it.
First impulse was to say you're wrong, because so very many voices, including people whose expertise I might otherwise respect unreservedly, regard the Trump administration as churning opportunity to affirm their own greater integrity and expertise.
But the ones who are noisiest in that way —and I mean noisiest in both senses, loud and incomprehensible— aren't actually the policy elites under discussion. The elites described in the NatRev piece are dumbfounded; since WWII, their superior test scores and social allegiances have guaranteed their success in government as a career, not just a few months or years of Cincinnatus-style gigging. No one has ever suggested to them that the rules might change. They didn't know they'd ever need bother expressing social contempt (though I'll admit that some of the smirking chatter during the Dubya years may have confused us on this point).
So you're right.
But both the befuddled elites and the street-squealers evince a tragic absence of humility.
Trump/Brexit is a meaningful and not necessarily comforting change in the direction of Western Civ. Everyone ought to be on their best behavior, and neither of these parties is moving very graciously.
Crid at November 11, 2017 12:08 PM
Regional differences.
Crid at November 11, 2017 12:11 PM
Elites today are afraid to be elite.
As a result, they put forth a "prolier than thou" front - no judgement and no condemnation of self destructive behaviors in others. While at home, the elites may engage in behaviors that advance their socio-economic condition, i.e., saving money, finishing their education, getting married before having children - but in pubic they "refuse to preach what they themselves actually practice. They are terrified of being judgmental, of seeming elitist. And so the hallmark of an elitist these days is to pretend you’re not one."
One cannot condemn a gun-toting Trump voter without incurring charges of elitism, the greatest fear of the elite.
One must be the type of politician with whom Joe Six-Pack could hoist a beer at his local tavern; and not a craft-brewed stout, but a mass-produced pilsner available in stores everywhere in cans and bottles.
Likewise, one cannot condemn the self-destructive profligate child-bearing of the poor, one must celebrate single motherhood as if each woman bearing a child out of wedlock is a wealthy attorney who tired of a string of unacceptable suitors and simply had Biff down at the country club contribute some of his genetic material - rather than acknowledge her as an unemployed high school drop-out who got knocked up by a drug dealing wannabe rapper after a night of bad decisions all around.
That would invite charges of elitism. And we cannot have that; we cannot be that.
So, we've turned the country into one in which any behavior, no matter how destructive, is "a choice" and cannot be condemned, lest the scold be seen as a judgmental snob.
Social striving through hard work and sensible decisions (once known as delayed gratification) is passé and wallowing in a swamp of victimhood surrounded by the evidence of serial bad decisions is the only acceptable behavior.
One can be forgiven for making a series of bad decisions, but not for pointing that the decisions were bad or that the sufferer's current misery is the direct result of those bad decisions.
Everyone is allowed one mistake, except that we cannot acknowledge it as a mistake; and the same mistake gets repeated ad infinitum without anyone allowed to cry "stop doing that!"
Conan the Grammarian at November 11, 2017 12:46 PM
The GOP House Tax Bill SUCKS!
And the Senate Bill isn't really any better, but what do you expect with the GOP-e tards that are in charge of Congress?
mpetrie98 at November 11, 2017 12:58 PM
A question Conan. Which 'elites' are you talking about. There are the government employed elites or mainstreemers as Dougherty put it. There are the wall street elites. There are the religious elites. That is just in this country and I've certainly forgotten a few. Most of those groups aren't that elite. In fact many of them are down right hostile to any sort of meritocracy because they know their only merits are friends and relatives.
As for your description of single mothers, 50% of the kids born this year were born to single mothers. Only 15% of Americans are high school dropouts. So those numbers don't add up. Like it or not single motherhood is normal these days. Still stupid and depressing but normal none the less.
Ben at November 11, 2017 2:09 PM
I believe you mean that 50% of children this year will have parents who are not married - mostly through divorce. The single mother hood rate has not yet reached 50% overall. It has for minorities, however, which is driving much of the moratorium on speaking ill of it. Overall, 40.3% of all children born in the US are born to unwed mothers.
Generationally, the numbers are even scarier. 57% of children born to Millennials are born to unwed mothers.
And how many of those 15% are from single mothers? Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school.
It used to be a politician could say that single motherhood was a bad idea and most of the public would agree. Today, the media will condemn that politician as elitist and judgmental and the public will concur.
We've become so afraid of being labeled elitist that we've embraced lower class behavior as normal. And we're paying a price for it. Our math and science scores (and proficiency) as a country are slipping.
We've turned ourselves into Idiocracy. How much longer before we're watering our plants with energy drinks and electing a wrestler president?
Conan the Grammarian at November 11, 2017 3:57 PM
> Like it or not single motherhood
> is normal these days. Still stupid
> and depressing but normal
> none the less.
That thing where someone tries to sound wizened and world-weary but mostly seems goofy or morally illiterate.
Crid at November 11, 2017 4:07 PM
See also.
Crid at November 11, 2017 4:10 PM
Twenty one thousand drunk driving deaths each and every year is "stupid and depressing but normal none the less."
Sike!
Crid at November 11, 2017 4:58 PM
See also. Look at the graphs.
I especially like the way this tweet recommended the article linked earlier today.
Crid at November 11, 2017 5:50 PM
Have you ever even *met* a Trump voter? Ever buy a beer for one?
I wrote this just after the election last year after voting for Trump
And it seems I was right on every score
To all my liberal friends horrified by a Trump presidency, a few points to consider
1. He has no support form his own party in congress
2. Democrats in congress will now be invested in clawing back much of the power they gave up to the executive branch
3. He has no tact so you'll always know what he is up to
4. Until he ran as a republican he was considered by all to be a liberal
5. That means he is just as open to bribery as the woman you voted for
6. With a republican in the white house the press and liberals in the citizenry will once more care about things like NSA spying on americans, warrantless wiretaps, carte blanche FISA warrants, american troop in the middle east, free speech. You know all the civil liberty violations they protested under Bush but ignored under Obama
7. With no one in congress supporting him and congress fighting amongst themselves they wont have the energy to pass as many pointless tens of thousands of regulations that turn us all into criminals
8. Plus with the delusional people in the GOP who actually think Trump is a good person for the job trying to take over the GOP it could very well split permanently damaging that political party
lujlp at November 11, 2017 5:50 PM
"That thing where someone tries to sound wizened and world-weary but mostly seems goofy or morally illiterate."
"Twenty one thousand drunk driving deaths each and every year is "stupid and depressing but normal none the less.""
Yes Crid. That is normal. It has been that way for quite a while. But as usual you don't have an argument. Only emotion.
Conan, You are right I flubbed the numbers. But at 40% that is still pretty much a definition of normal. Or common place if you wish. It isn't just high school dropouts. College educated people are headed down that path in significant numbers. Two to three decades ago you would have been right in your characterization of single mothers. But things have changed.
The hilarious thing is I keep seeing people like Lenona arguing that women want this. That women are refusing to marry and choosing single motherhood. I've got more respect for women's intelligence than that. As Crid's links and common sense point out being a single mother sucks. You have to be pretty stupid to choose that.
Ben at November 11, 2017 6:10 PM
> That is normal. It has been
> that way for quite a while.
Muffin, follow the link— The number's been cut in half in a single generation.
Christ knows how much better this planet would be if ninnies weren't so proud of being listlessly cynical.
Crid at November 11, 2017 6:42 PM
20 years is a short period of time?
Ben at November 11, 2017 8:07 PM
I have to take a second stab at this. For one, your complaint was my characterization of time? Seriously? Crid, you need to learn to complain clearly instead of verbosely. There was no possible way for someone to get that from what you wrote. Secondly, a single generation? From boomers to millenials isn't a single generation. Boomers starts around 1940. Millenials start around 1980. That is 40 years. So yeah, it's been this way for quite a while. 40 years by your reckoning.
Ben at November 11, 2017 8:18 PM
Ben, that’s my point. Perhaps I did not make it well. We defined deviancy down for decades. And no one was allowed to argue against it, so now it has become commonplace. And that has been destructive to society. We are no longer an aspirational culture.
Conan the Grammarian at November 11, 2017 9:12 PM
I understood and agreed with your overall point Conan. My counter point was that your characterizations were about a decade or two old. From the source to your news article there is not much difference between high school dropouts and those with degrees or even those with some college. (22%, 19%, 17% for whites). You only see a significant drop with the completion of college (7% for whites). But the reality is this is only moderately effective. Even among college degree holders single motherhood is rising.
I also note the data you quoted in the article is from 2015, not 2017. I may be correct that single mothers are at 50% this year. This tends to follow a pretty steep curve over time. By 2030 whites should have followed hispanics and be around 60-70%.
Ben at November 12, 2017 5:41 AM
> There was no possible way for
> someone to get that from what
> you wrote.
My writing is clear as crystal, only not for racist goofs who think they already know all the world's truths. Learn to read, learn to count, and be in touch... Quietly, politely.
Crid at November 12, 2017 6:14 AM
"As for your description of single mothers, 50% of the kids born this year were born to single mothers. Only 15% of Americans are high school dropouts. So those numbers don't add up."
They shouldn't. You've mixed two seperate concepts.
"15% of Americans" would be everyone in the country, of whatever age. Comparing that to this year's crop is thus meaningless.
Radwaste at November 12, 2017 11:15 AM
Don't be dense Rad. Single mothers aren't only or even mainly high school dropouts. The men that father their children aren't as well. Conan may have been correct a few decades ago. He isn't today. Things have already changed. As proof, the data Conan quoted.
Ben at November 12, 2017 5:28 PM
Ben, i wasn't saying that high school dropouts are single mothers or that single mothers are mostly high school dropouts. I was saying that children of single mothers are more likely to be high school dropouts. And that is true today as well as decades ago.
Conan the Grammarian at November 12, 2017 6:36 PM
That may be what you intended Conan. But it certainly isn't what you wrote.
"one must celebrate single motherhood as if each woman bearing a child out of wedlock is a wealthy attorney who tired of a string of unacceptable suitors and simply had Biff down at the country club contribute some of his genetic material - rather than acknowledge her as an unemployed high school drop-out who got knocked up by a drug dealing wannabe rapper after a night of bad decisions all around."
From the dataset you quoted, 66% of mothers with no highschool diploma are unmarried, 59% of those with a HS diploma, 43% with some college, and 10% of those with a college degree. This is for the total US population back in 2015.
And to answer Rad's issue, despite some characterizations the poors aren't outbreeding everyone else. No HS diploma mothers match their percentage of the population at 15% of the births. Those with only a HS diploma were 25%, those with some college were 30%, and those with a college degree were 30%. These are of total births not percentage of single mother births.
I actually agree with you Conan about how important the traditional american nuclear family is for both raising kids and stabilizing society. And I understand you were getting a bit emotional and hyperbolic. But even with your hyperbole you were still several decades behind. This type of data historically looks much like a step function. Over a 20 year period (essentially a generation) things shift from one extreme to the other. At this point words or leadership from 'elites' is far too little too late. Without massive changes to family law you aren't going to see any improvement. You probably have to make massive changes to the education system as well. Anything less than that is irrelevant. You may as well try and empty the ocean with a tea spoon.
Ben at November 13, 2017 6:30 AM
Um, no Ben.
What I said there is that you're no longer allowed to tell the woman that she's wrong and that she's putting her child at a disadvantage, making him/her likely to drop out of school.
You, as a politician or academic or even private citizen are not allowed to tell her that she's wrong. You must accept that it's her choice or her culture or some other such nonsense. We've defined deviancy down and have been doing so for decades.
That's why you see single motherhood numbers growing. We've allowed it, and all its attendant problems, to become the norm.
Conan the Grammarian at November 13, 2017 7:56 AM
Lower class behavior is now considered the norm; has been allowed to become the norm.
That was my whole point, Ben. Yes, the numbers are different now, college-educated women are becoming single mothers. And their children are probably just as likely to have difficulty in school and society and become drop-outs.
Muffy from the club may be able to overcome many of the difficulties of single motherhood with generous child support from Biff and a host of tutors and social engagements for her child. But the unemployed waitress with the wannabe rapper baby-daddy will not.
We can pretend all single mothers are Muffy and excuse our own laxity in allowing single motherhood to become the norm, but that won't change the fact that children of single mothers face a series of struggles that children with two involved parents won't face.
We let lower class behavior become the norm; we no longer strive to achieve socio-economic status, but victimhood.
That same college-educated single mother is going to insist on receiving government assistance for her single motherhood and since we allowed it to be the norm, we're stuck with the bill.
Conan the Grammarian at November 13, 2017 8:11 AM
I still say your words don't say what you intended them to say. And in fact you are continuing that practice with your characterization of the wannabe rapper baby-daddy. I look around in my generation and who are the baby-daddies? Electronic technician, lineman, store security agent (loss prevention), and a truck driver. Those are only the ones I can name from my life right off the top of my head. You are talking about 40% of the population. There just aren't enough wannabe rappers to go around. But we can agree to disagree on that.
I also disagree we allowed lower class behavior to become the norm. We did far more than that and incentivised it in law. Why did welfare recipients abandon marriage decades ago? Because we setup well meaning but destructive laws in place. We essentially paid women to divorce their husbands. The same has extended up the economic scale. Well meaning but destructive laws mean women can divorce for no reason whatsoever and keep most of the economic benefits of marriage. So through the 80s and 90s you saw a huge level of divorce go on. And now in the 2000s and 2010s those divorce numbers have plummeted because far fewer men are willing to sign up for an inevitable and inequitable divorce. In order to turn things around those laws on both divorce and even more significantly child custody have to change. In addition we have to change our schools which indoctrinate those poor behaviors. And after all of that is done we still have to wait for ~20 years. People are very habitual. You will need a new generation of people who learn new habits before much change will take place.
Ben at November 13, 2017 11:26 AM
"And beer? Perhaps a nice chardonnay or a crisp sauvignon blanc with a cheese plate."
The 1980s called. They want their foam trucker hat back.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at November 13, 2017 1:32 PM
On the stuff in that paragraph, we agree.
Conan the Grammarian at November 13, 2017 1:39 PM
The hilarious thing is I keep seeing people like Lenona arguing that women want this. That women are refusing to marry and choosing single motherhood. I've got more respect for women's intelligence than that. As Crid's links and common sense point out being a single mother sucks. You have to be pretty stupid to choose that.
Ben at November 11, 2017 6:10 PM
________________________________________________
I have no idea what the exact stats are, but I'd be foolish to suggest that the reasons for single motherhood are the same at each class level - and I never have.
It also depends a great deal on what AGE we're talking about, regarding the individual. Few well-off teen girls give birth IF they become pregnant - unless they're very religious. According to one memoir, a great many would-be adoptive parents who don't want to adopt any child other than a healthy baby stress the importance of religion in their lives, for precisely that reason. Poor girls tend not to give up their babies for adoption. How many of them INTENDED to get pregnant, I don't know. But I'd guess most didn't. The main reasons they keep them are, they don't want to risk regretting adoption (a lifelong trauma), and they very often have no real futures to prepare for anyway, unlike middle-class girls, so motherhood is the only solid path to respect and adulthood they can see.
Middle-class WOMEN mostly don't want to be single mothers, of course. Some, however, prefer being the absolute bosses in the family, which is one reason they choose that path even before they get pregnant. (I have two very well-educated friends who did that.)
I have no idea which path lesbians tend to choose, if they want children in the first place - and plenty still don't. From humorist Fran Lebowitz in an interview, on gay marriage:
"My main feeling is, I don’t care what you do, as long as you don’t make noise. I don’t care if people want to get married, they can get married, you know, as long as it’s not mandatory… I, as a single person who pays taxes, I think it’s unfair that anyone is allowed to get married, from a money point of view… It seems to me that the arguments are either about money, or about visiting people in hospitals, neither of which I find that sexy, to tell you the truth. To me, not having to be with someone else in the hospital? Perfect! Great! 'I’d love to meet you in the hospital, but unfortunately, I can’t.' That would be more my stance. I don’t want to have to visit you in the hospital. But as far as all of these financial advantages, I don’t see why that’s fair."
Q: "Single people should get them too?"
A: "No one should get them!"
(end)
It's safe to say Fran's always welcomed not being expected to have children either. Being a baby-boomer lesbian may well make her different from younger ones.
And finally, regarding working-class WOMEN (including white women) who pretty much choose single motherhood, see this book:
"Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood Before Marriage" by Kathryn Edin and Maria J. Kefalas (2005)
The authors claim, IIRC, that many poor women simply feel that it's better to be a single mother on welfare than never to be a mother at all, and given the lack of job opportunities and shortage of men with non-criminal records, they don't feel they have a choice. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have gotten married if they thought they COULD find a good man within their class and social circle.
lenona at November 13, 2017 5:12 PM
"Don't be dense Rad."
I'm not, not being the one who conflated all people in America with a single year's output of unwed mothers. Get a grip.
Radwaste at November 13, 2017 10:55 PM
Lenona, I could be wrong but I remember you making the argument that women choose to be single mothers. Though you probably did it in your usual way of presenting someone else's words so you could disavow them when needed. I also don't claim there aren't any women who enthusiastically choose single motherhood over marriage. But as far as I can tell the numbers are small enough to ignore. Same with lesbians. There just aren't that many lesbians to begin with. Same for Conan's Muffy. All of those groups lumped together probably account for under 3% of the population. Meanwhile 97% choose single motherhood because it was a choice between single motherhood and never having children. Marriage was not an option.
In my personal life I know of one woman who refused to get married but still had a kid with a guy. She intentionally chose unwed motherhood. Humorously she is currently married to that guy and it looks like they will be married for life. At the same time I know six women who sometimes claim they chose single motherhood but the reality is no one was proposing. The men in their lives weren't dumb enough to marry them. Though they were dumb enough to have kids with them. Make of that what you will.
A third case a smart guy like Conan is going to have to help classify for me. Guy had a kid with someone else's wife. Everyone knows he is the father but she and hubby didn't split. So she isn't an unwed mother. Just that hubby isn't the father. My cousin couldn't figure out why everyone wasn't as happy and proud as he was when he took the kid to family gatherings. Just couldn't figure out what the issue might be. What can I say, cocaine is a hell of a drug.
Yes Rad. You were being intentionally dense.
Ben at November 14, 2017 6:25 AM
Lenona, I could be wrong but I remember you making the argument that women choose to be single mothers.
_________________________________
Kindly dig up the exact thread and then we'll talk. Any fool knows that plenty of teens - and women - never intended to get pregnant in the first place, but changed their original plans as to what they would do if they accidentally got pregnant. Doesn't mean a strong minority of girls and women who planned it from the start don't exist, and it makes no sense for anyone to ignore that phenomenon - so, many writers have pointed it out. Another such writer I mentioned a while back was WaPo journalist Leon Dash, who wrote "When Children Want Children." (Both he and his subjects are black, FWIW.)
And for those who argue that there's no such thing as a woman who "accidentally" gets pregnant, it's possible for even TWO contraceptives to fail at once. Not to mention that, no matter what sex ed teachers might teach, most people seem to think that if the woman is on the Pill, there's no need for an extra contraceptive. Sorry, t'ain't true. The real-life failure rate is 5-6%.
lenona at November 14, 2017 5:23 PM
"Yes Rad. You were being intentionally dense."
Your comment isn't even in the ballpark of "correct" until a graph showing the change in population {single mothers/all mothers, reproduction rate/ditto, elapsed time} is generated, preferably with distribution data to show the actual effect on cities vs. suburbs, to connect the two. They are that far apart.
Choose your words more carefully and you can produce sentences that stand alone.
Radwaste at November 15, 2017 1:02 AM
Still insisting on being dense, eh Rad? I've already shown my statement is correct. If you want to prove me wrong you need to provide data showing that. The burden of further proof is on you not me.
Ben at November 15, 2017 5:53 AM
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