McCain, Palin and the GOP

It has been a melancholic month or so here at the Donkey, but you really need to get over to Mel-Anon's site for his coverage on the Palin VP choice. The titles of the posts are alone worth dropping by... Junogate, genius! Perhaps the best post of the group on this topic is the analysis of shotgun weddings, which is an area of expertise for anyone from Montgomery Indiana.

What this means, of course, is that the kids born to these teenage mothers have to live with the fact that they were meant to be punishment for their parents' indiscretion. That seems like an awful lot to hang on a kid, since most people tend to resent their punishment. I'm not a psychologist, but I can't see how that's a positive situation.

I know that Obama has stated that the family is off limits, but this isn't about the daughter's actions, it is a much larger snapshot of the lunacy of the right wing moralists. By taking certain "moral" stances to be imperatives and uncompromisable, these folks flippantly ignore solutions to some of societies ills, such as unplanned pregnancies. It seems pretty obvious to me that offering safe sex education could signifcantly reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, but of course if that succeeded the moralists may be forced to admit that their Victorian ideals are a bit dated...

It also seems obvious to me that McCain's choice is a rather lame sop to the social conservatives, who just couldn't get on board with a guy who had somewhat accurately posited that they were "agents of intolerance." To think that in 2000 I would have likely voted for McCain vs. Gore. I guess this shows how the will to power can drastically change a person's views.