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It's not often that we wax philosophical here at My Rural America. Mostly, we're about facts and how the facts affect our rural families, so we're not about to start preaching now while Governor Mark Sanford (R-SC) and John Ensign (R-NV) make the news as they join the ranks of other elected officials who have shamed their families.
However, there are several new studies out that focus on numbers of divorces, teenage pregnancies and pornography readers. Until now, we hadn't connected the dots to how states vote and where families are strongest -- moderate and liberal voting states, but see below for some serious detail to help you get started thinking:
For more details about how conservatives are struggling with the matters they preach about the most, "The Prurient Trap" by NY Times Op Ed writer Charles M. Blow brings a spotlight to the families, and also a really good chart so that you can see where your state falls in the statistical research.
What's most interesting to us is how these conservative states -- states with the highest divorce rates, highest number of teenage pregnancies and the most people sitting around reading pornography -- also have the most elected officials who continually vote to make things more difficult for families.
For 2008, this meant these officials were most likely to votes against State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and most likely to vote to kill the New GI Bill. For 2009, these same officials are more likely now to be dragging their feet on health care for all. Why? Let us know your comments.
Thomas L. Friedman asks a tough question in his 10/8/08 column for the NY Times. Essentially, his question is: Can you love your country but be unwilling to pay the taxes that run it? ... or to put it another way, is it better to borrow money from China to buy the things you want ... or is it better to admit up front that government actions, whether its war-making or road-making takes money ... and money comes (usually) from taxes.
You could call this a conundrum or maybe a Catch 22, but overall, one just has to wonder how anyone running for a major office -- in this case Governor Sarah Palin -- can so lightly throw away all the good things that are paid for by taxes in this country. Here's the way Friedman framed his question:"Criticizing Sarah Palin is truly shooting fish in a barrel. But given the huge attention she is getting, you can't just ignore what she has to say. And there was one thing she said in the debate with Joe Biden that really sticks in my craw. It was when she turned to Biden and declared: 'You said recently that higher taxes or asking for higher taxes or paying higher taxes is patriotic. In the middle class of America, which is where Todd and I have been all of our lives, that's not patriotic.'"
And wisely, Friedman answered her comment/his question, saying, "Sorry, I grew up in a very middle-class family in a very middle-class suburb of Minneapolis, and my parents taught me that paying taxes, while certainly no fun, was how we paid for the police and the Army, our public universities and local schools, scientific research and Medicare for the elderly. No one said it better than Oliver Wendell Holmes: "I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization." Read more here.
So ... we're in the middle of an economic mess and Palin thinks it's better to borrow money from China than for us all to actually pay for what we want our government to do. Well, that lines up with how she and McCain would rather drill for oil -- note here that the U.S. only has five percent of the world's oil -- than invest in technology that over time will put the U.S. on the road to energy independence. More detail is available in "Palin's Kind of Patriotism" by Friedman.
We were watching last night's debate, and we "betcha" you were, too. One key difference between McCain and Obama is on health care, so for easy clarification, we recommend re-watching YouTube's "McCain Obama Differ Dramatically on Health Care."
Once you watch, a more substantive view has been offered by Paul Krugman in his recent column "Health Care Destruction" in the 10/6/08 New York Times. The column really is must reading, but Krugman's closing line is particularly scary as he says, "I agree: the McCain plan would do for health care what deregulations has done for banking. And I'm terrified." Read more here.
Count us as terrified, too.
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