Shame - can it be effective as a Public Policy?

[NYcarbineer]

Shame as public policy can't work because most rightwingers are shameless.

Don't know if I'd go that far, but they're workin' on it.

The 60's revolution made social pariahs out of chauvinist racist segregationists. Many of whom were the fathers/mothers and grandfathers/grandmothers of southern and Midwestern "so called conservative" Tea Party/Pseudo Independent-Libertarian voters, who all vote Republican.

But in the name of a fight against the cry baby PC crowd...they're trying to make all that bigotry okay again, and packaging it as "defending traditional values"

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

99% of rightwingers are at least as intolerant of differing views as any of the worst of the so-called PC crowd.

The reason you don't hear about rightwing 'PC' on conservative college campuses is that they are so exclusionary of liberalism that the left can't get a foot in the door far enough to create a controversy...

...although I recall I think it was Liberty University where students protested a Romney visit because he's a Mormon...lol

Romney should be ashamed of being a Mormon!

Mormonism was invented because normal Christianity didn't have enough implausible elements.

 

[Sonny Clark]

So you are unable to explain why it is ridiculous and out of bounds?

You could just use the normal Liberal play-book and call me a bigot.

Oh, I can explain, easily. But, as I have already stated, it's too damn ridiculous to address. What is a Liberal playbook? I have no idea as to what that is. Why would I call you a bigot? I don't know you. I have no reason to call you names. I don't engage in name calling and personal attacks. It's silly, immature, and adds absolutely nothing to conversations.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Anyone not a Democrat can see that the greatest contributor to the major social ills of our society, namely, poverty (aka "inequality"), crime, addiction, incarceration, unemployment, educational failure, and despair in the U.S. is illegitimacy. With the national bastardy rate at 40% and climbing, the statistics continue to point to the intact nuclear family as the greatest boon to social and economic success. As one salient example, children born into an intact family (Mother and father married, and both present in the home) are only one-seventh as likely to live in poverty as children living with a single parent. Statistics on whether those children will drop out of school, be in trouble with the law, abuse alcohol or controlled substances, produce more illegitimate children of their own, and so forth, pretty much follow the same pattern.

And yet, it has become dogmatic in our culture that it is unacceptable to criticize the behavior of the biological mothers and fathers, or to withhold any public benefit (i.e., to remove any incentive) from people who produce illegitimate offspring.

It is said that this is a form of "blaming the victim," or punishing the innocent children. Thus, we have the conundrum of being unable to punish or dis-incentivize the behavior that is literally our greatest social problem.

But could we shame them? Effectively?

Could a President pursue a 4-year-long campaign to stigmatize the young men (mainly) who father, and the young women who birth these millions of illegitimate offspring?

Take out billboards that say, "Being a sperm-donor is not the same as being a Man."

"Good people do not produce children that they cannot support and nurture."

"'Love Child' my ass."

And so on.

It would also be worth noting (to the target audience) that being socially responsible does not even require that one change one's behavior - just use some sort of reliable B.C.

When I was growing up the illegitimacy rate was a tiny fraction of what it is today because (a) getting pregnant while single was disgraceful, and (b) young men felt obliged to marry a girl that they knocked up. Also, being on welfare was considered disgraceful across the entire spectrum of the American population, and no one wanted to be in that situation, especially due to voluntarily action. This is why Patrick Moynihan's study was so shocking to many people; it documented the fact that in some "Negro" neighborhoods it was socially acceptable to have bastard children with the full expectation that they would be provided for by the Government. People were SHOCKED. Not so long ago. And now this is considered a value-neutral "lifestyle choice."

Need one say, "Bullshit"?

Could shame - as a public policy - work today?

So I guess Margaret Sanger was right?