The Grand Illusion
As I’m certain, many of my readers already know about J.D. Vance’s comments about the Democratic Party’s leadership consisting of “childless cat ladies” and his insistence that people who aren’t parents have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.”
Vance, of course, is free to state his opinions, but like too many on the extremes of the left and right, particularly the far right, he seems to have difficulty in understanding that his opinions aren’t facts.
How many thousands of young men and women in the armed services died for their country before they could have children, an example typified by Nathan Hale, executed by the British, and memorialized by the line, “I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country.” Hale and all the other thousands of childless members of the armed services who died in the line of duty sacrificed their lives for their country despite having no children.
As for being great Americans without biological children, how about starting with George Washington, who was “only” a stepfather to Martha’s son and daughter?
Or how about Betsy Ross, Rosa Parks, Susan B. Anthony, the Wright brothers, Dr. Suess (Theodor Geisel), Howard Hughes, Amelia Earhart, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Helen Keller, Tennessee Williams, Harlan Ellison, George R. R. Martin, Sally Ride, Julia Child, Dolly Parton, Henry David Thoreau… and this is just a sampling of “childless” Americans who have made physical and intellectual commitments to the country.
And, by the way, three other U.S. Presidents had no biological children — James Polk, Andrew Jackson, and James Buchanan… and certainly Jackson and Polk acted in ways very much committed to the future of the United States.
But then, like Trump, Vance too often believes that what he says are facts, rather than looking to see if what he believes actually has a factual basis.
Besides the ridiculous moral arguments, these arguments are now falling into the basket of denying the realities that exist today on this planet. As conservative climate change denying, antiscience zealots, one has to create a new reality. That means that the earth has no real constraints on the size of the human population. That economic growth has no limits. That all new scientific information is harmful to the collective psyche and must be banned or shouted down. This isn’t woke. It’s the party of the ostrich.
I’m frankly surprised (but not really) that a party that seems so concerned with the cost of everything would decide that carrying the weight of those large families would be preferable to collecting taxes from couples with no children and no additional societal burden on schools, government support, etc.
I suppose the unsaid part is that the conservatives actually do believe in all the aforementioned issues but plan that only a large white population will be the rightful heirs to the earth and the rest of the baggage population will ultimately be discarded in some manner.
The rhetoric is getting nuttier all the time. I just wonder when the penny will drop for most of the US voters.
This particular party will not spend tax money (their money!) to benefit families (with or without children).
If people starve or die from disease or war, it won’t be them. The tax money they save will keep their ives comfortable.
Better childless than heartless. (Or brainless.)
I mean, he made an advertisement that starts flat out with him saying “Are you racist? Do you hate Mexicans?”
They genuinely think hatred is valid and can win…