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Romney Resigns, Blames Porn for Black Babies
Romney's out, and here's what he
chose to emphasize in his speech on the way out:
Tolerance for pornography—even celebration of it—and sexual promiscuity, combined with the twisted incentives of government welfare programs have led to today’s grim realities: 68% of African American children are born out-of-wedlock, 45% of Hispanic children, and 25% of White children. How much harder it is for these children to succeed in school—and in life. A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers cannot long stand when its children are raised without fathers in the home.
By the logic of this paragraph, you download a two minute clip of girl-on-girl action, and the next thing you know there are little black babies popping up everywhere, wishing that George Washington was their daddy.
Oy. I kind of liked Romney, but this is brutal. I blame Romney's venue, CPAC, which brings out the worst in everyone.
UPDATE: At least there's this:
Most politicians don’t seem to understand the connection between our ability to compete and our national wealth, and the wealth of our families. They act as if money just happens–that it’s just there. But every dollar represents a good or service produced in the private sector. Depress the private sector and you depress the well-being of Americans....
It’s high time to lower taxes, including corporate taxes, to take a weed-whacker to government regulations, to reform entitlements, and to stand up to the increasingly voracious appetite of the unions in our government!
|2.7.08 @ 1:50PM|#
I like how when you hold the mouse pointer over the pics you get "washington" and "baby." Yeah, thanks for that. I suppose that's there for the blind, right?
Billy Beck|2.7.08 @ 1:54PM|#
Hush, sage. I'm listening to Peggy Noonan's heaving breast on MSNBC and various other sounds of piety out there. Don't be burnin' the groove, man.
|2.7.08 @ 1:54PM|#
alt text doesn't show up for me on Firefox.
And as far as the porno stuff. I am pretty sure my mild porn
addiction made me have LESS sex, and thus less babies out of
wedlock, not MORE.
My conception batting average is pretty much 1.000 as it is.
Spending time looking up porn on my computer has kept me in the
house, not out making babies.
Maybe the solution is to make sure black and hispanic people have
MORE access to porn?
|2.7.08 @ 1:57PM|#
Romney is just so interested in promoting logic literacy that he wanted to provide an example of a non sequitur.
|2.7.08 @ 1:57PM|#
Once again, "Lucky Eric" Dondero's support is the kiss of death to a candidate. Where will our little good luck charm turn his attentions next? Republicans should hope he will switch parties and support Hillary.
|2.7.08 @ 1:59PM|#
I don't know what kind of porn he's been watching, but my research suggest that a) you really can't get pregnant that way and b) if you did it would only result a half-black child.
|2.7.08 @ 2:00PM|#
Wow. All those hours I spent looking at Playboy and Penthouse in
high school...
Who knew that I was this close to fathering scores of illegitimate
children out of thin air?
Thank you, Mitt Romney. Now I know.
|2.7.08 @ 2:02PM|#
Not a great sentence, but he certainly didn't blame porn alone--
it was porn (yeah I disagree too) AND promiscuity AND government
program incentives that lead to those things. So I think he's wrong
on porn, partially right on promiscuity although it's not an issue
for a candidate to address or fix, and totally right on the
programs point.
Come on, he's decent. And that's great these days.
|2.7.08 @ 2:05PM|#
I didn't know they made porn for black babies.
They make porn for everything and everyone.
|2.7.08 @ 2:07PM|#
They make porn for everything and everyone.
Yeah, didn't we cover this the other day?
|2.7.08 @ 2:13PM|#
Don't you get it!? It's not pornography, it's "tolerance for pornography." That means that everyone who doesn't actively despise it and work to eliminate it is guilty of contributing to illegitimate children. I don't really see where this comes from unless there's some phenomenon out there where fathers leave their families because they're too occupied with porn. I don't think, even if that happens, this is a great contributer to illegit children.
|2.7.08 @ 2:16PM|#
I didn't know they made porn for black babies.
joe, apparently you haven't seen "Diaper Dairies III: Bangin' in
Compton."
|2.7.08 @ 2:16PM|#
stand up to the increasingly voracious appetite of the
unions in our government!
He had to quit- he's unelectable. Talking that way about those
great guys and gals at AFSCME; tisk, tisk. Next thing you know,
he'll show up in Tennessee with a recovery plan which doesn't rely
on federal disaster funds.
|2.7.08 @ 2:29PM|#
Breaking news!
Yeah, who would have thought that a straight-arrow Peter Priesthood
Mormon with a Temple Recommend who got 90% of the primary vote in
Utah would hate pornography and out-of-wedlock marriage? That
TOTALLY blindsided me.
/sarcasm
Though, if you watch General Conference the first weekend in April,
and in particular the Priesthood session, I can pretty much
guarantee you'll always find one or more talks about the terrible
damage porn is doing to so many of those oh-so-susceptible
Elders.
Apparently it's pretty damned attractive to a bit chunk of the LDS
youth -- and adults.
|2.7.08 @ 2:30PM|#
too bad.. despite moralizing stuff like that porn quote and the 'double gitmo' pandering, i think he would have made a competent president. but check it out: Ron Paul has outlasted Rudy Giuliani AND Mitt Romney, each of whom was once a presumptive nominee! This means more injection of libertarian ideas into the debate! (or as much as can get by the media filter)
|2.7.08 @ 2:31PM|#
They make porn for everything and everyone.
Yeah, didn't we cover this the other day?
No burqa porn available (yet).
|2.7.08 @ 2:33PM|#
The percentage of children born out of wedlock is alarming to
me. The 'twisted incentives of government welfare programs' are at
least partially to blame. I don't think he's saying the government
should take action to stop it, but that the government should stop
supporting it.
Besides his (supposed) suggestion that porn is part of the problem,
I don't see anything wrong with what he said.
|2.7.08 @ 2:34PM|#
I always took Romney for the Fujimori candidate, in the sense
that he calculated it would be better to lie about some of his
policy/personal positions (i.e. the 'cultural' ones) in order to
win over the conservative-conservatives (in fact I was somewhat
pleased to see someone try to game voters like that). In the end
though I'm sure it would have been more effective to just come
clean(er) and instead emphasize his experience with BC, while using
his knowledge of econ to make McCain look stupid. That said I don't
think he'd have ever been able to overcome the LDS thing and win
the southern states.
So I guess I don't mind if politicians lie, so long as its done to
pacify voters with stupid ideas. Though I suppose we'll never know
for sure if thats what Romney was doing.
|2.7.08 @ 2:42PM|#
every dollar represents a good or service produced in the
private sector
Really, Mittens? Really, Katherine? It's hard for me to see how the
interest paid on a debt owed to a foreign government counts as a
good or service produced in the private sector. Not to mention the
source of this unsecured currency, ie "released" by the Fed. When
the money supply is expanded how does that exactly represent a good
or service? Not that the rest isn't a nice sound bite, granted.
|2.7.08 @ 2:49PM|#
maybe this Dondero person is actually using his poisonous touch to support each of Ron Paul's opponents in turn, killing their candidacies with his anti-Midas touch until only Paul is left standing. Maybe he's been a secret loyalist all along! "I think you're half-smart. I think you're straight with Leo, and you're queer with Johnny Casper. Up is down, black is white." Maybe it's even planned!! He's takin his orders from Yag Central, like a goddamned Bolshevik.
|2.7.08 @ 2:51PM|#
All we need now is for Huckabee and McCain to drop out and Ron Paul is in, right? ;-)
Tacos mmm...|2.7.08 @ 2:53PM|#
The percentage of children born out of wedlock is alarming to me. The 'twisted incentives of government welfare programs' are at least partially to blame. I don't think he's saying the government should take action to stop it, but that the government should stop supporting it.
Besides his (supposed) suggestion that porn is part of the problem, I don't see anything wrong with what he said.
These government programs that are supposedly responsible for the
problem of single-parent families, were, if you remember, created
in _response_ to the problem of single parent families. While you
can argue about incentives, few people have children with the goal
of ending up on the government dole, which is really pretty
miserly.
Romney is wrong because he depicts this as primarily a moral issue.
He's being a condescending ass, saying that America is essentially
being weakened by poor black people who can't control their sexual
urges or their greed for government money. This is a pretty common
perspective on the far right - that everything that is wrong with
the country ultimately ultimately boils down to the moral
degeneracy of other people - but I don't think it's a very complete
perspective.
Black families have never looked like white families, and you can't
ignore the roles of poverty and culture in producing high numbers
of single parents.
|2.7.08 @ 2:54PM|#
His point (how-every poorly made) was that porn has become
mainstream and accepted as part of everyday culture and celebrated
by pop-culture and media. Look at the drivel passed off as
entertainment on some channels (MTV, VH1, E! come to mind)...
The over-arching theme was that the Summer of Love non-judgemental,
everything's okay no matter the consequences mentality of the late
1960's -- which encouraged promiscuity and discouraged social
condemnation of it -- has along with the rise of the welfare state,
in large part contributed to the terrible increase in out of
wedlock births.
Thomas Sowell covers a lot of this in his book Black Rednecks and
White Liberals, and backs it up with astounding statistics on the
black family before and after the 60's. Even Jim Crow couldn't do
to the black family what the liberal summer of love movement and
easy welfare that took hold in the 60's did.
Whether pre-marital sex is right or wrong is not the issue. The
issue is that the embrace of it as the cultural norm and labeling
any criticism of it as sexist, ignorant, racist, etc. (while
refusing to point out the possible long-term detrimental
consequences of it) has contributed to the substantial decline of
the family unit, particularly in the disadvantaged. This, in turn
has had a terrible impact on academic and economic performance of
many minorities and poor across the country.
I thought it was a pretty good speach, all things considered. Just
before the porno-part, he railed against entitlements and called
for slashing the culture of dependency they cause.
|2.7.08 @ 3:02PM|#
Wasn't one of the supposed skeletons in Romney's closet
something about how he was on the board of the Marriott or Ramada
or some other big hotel chain that provided on-demand/pay-per-view
porn flicks and he did nothing about it, apart from pocket the
money that it brought in? And now he lectures us about "tolerance
for pornography"?
What an asshole.
|2.7.08 @ 3:03PM|#
Tacos, I suggest you do a little digging and see how much the
black family looked like the white family prior to the welfare
state and the 60's...
Thomas Sowell's Black Rednecks and White Liberals is a good
place to start.
According to facts Sowell presents As of 1960, 51% of black women
between 15-44 were married and living with their husbands. Only 28%
had never been married. 20 years later, 31% were married and 48%
were never married.
As of 1960 two thirds of black children were living with both
parents. By 1994, only one third of black children lived with both
parents.
22% of children were born to unwed mothers in 1960. In 1994, 70%
were.
|2.7.08 @ 3:04PM|#
...you download a two minute clip of girl-on-girl action, and the next thing you know there are little black babies popping up everywhere, wishing that George Washington was their daddy.
I don't think Romney's the one with the bad logic here. GG idiotic
kneejerk libertardian snark. You fail.
|2.7.08 @ 3:05PM|#
I can't believe nobody made the obvious joke, here:
By Romney's logic, I should have about 200 kids by now.
|2.7.08 @ 3:14PM|#
Tacos,
it's pretty simple economics actually. I'm not saying that anybody
plans to have a kid in order to get government money. If you take
away the consequences of poor choices, you do not end the poor
choices, you get more people making those poor choices. If becoming
a low income single parent was as financially difficult as it
should be, less people would do it.
Taktix®|2.7.08 @ 3:25PM|#
It's hard for me to see how the interest paid on a debt owed
to a foreign government counts as a good or service produced in the
private sector.
That interest is paid in exchange for capital, which is used to
produce goods and services. Try learning about economics before
making dumbass, isolationist statements...
Tacos mmm...|2.7.08 @ 3:33PM|#
If you take away the consequences of poor choices, you do not end the poor choices, you get more people making those poor choices. If becoming a low income single parent was as financially difficult as it should be, less people would do it.
So you think that most of these pregnancies are planned? Becasue
that's the only scenario in which such incentives would seem to
matter.
|2.7.08 @ 3:44PM|#
I suppose that's there for the blind, right?
I have to admit, I'm not entirely clear how a text tag is useful
for blind folks.
So you think that most of these pregnancies are
planned?
Based on zero research other than personal observation, I would say
a lot more teen pregnancies are, shall we say, not an accident,
than you might believe. In some of this great land's many
communities, being a teen mother has all kinds of social/status
rewards.
|2.7.08 @ 3:44PM|#
Tacos,
Are you kidding? you seriously can't grasp the logic? No I don't
think they are planned; I think a large portion of the consequences
of not being careful has been taken away, so people are less
careful. I think if getting pregnant without the resources to care
for a baby were more dangerous, people would have more incentive to
not get pregnant.
galthran|2.7.08 @ 3:45PM|#
Wow, the interest our government pays was for capital it used to produce goods/services in the private sector? Enlighten me more please. And here did the isolationist part come from?
Tacos mmm...|2.7.08 @ 3:46PM|#
Tacos, I suggest you do a little digging and see how much the black family looked like the white family prior to the welfare state and the 60's...
I'm familiar with many of the statistics, at least loosely, and
they're easily misinterpretted. The time period you reference, for
example, was marked less by a change in birthrates among teen
mothers as by a delay in marriage and increase in divorce. In
1950's, teens were more likely to give birth (almost twice as
likely as today, for example), but they were also more likely to be
married. What the (second) sexual revolution did was:
1) Delay age of marriage and increase divorce rates
2) Introduce he pill
You are implying that premarital sex increased due to the sexual
revolution, which is not something that can be easily supported.
The pattern that was broken was that of premarital sex leading to
pregnancy leading to marriage. The pill helped disconnect sex from
pregnancy, and cultural changes helped disconnect pregnancy from
marriage, breaking the chain in two places.
Tacos mmm...|2.7.08 @ 3:51PM|#
Are you kidding? you seriously can't grasp the logic? No I don't think they are planned; I think a large portion of the consequences of not being careful has been taken away, so people are less careful.
I grasp what you're saying. I just think that economics doesn't
provide much incentive for teenagers to avoid sex. IMHO, little
short of castration is likely to prevent sexual activity, and
therefore pregnancy, among young people.
|2.7.08 @ 3:54PM|#
Really? So all that talk about the pill is so much bullshit? The
poor black folk just can't help but get pregnant?
If getting pregnant were more serious, they would take steps to
prevent themselves from getting pregnant. As it is, a child can be
your meal ticket, so why take steps to prevent pregnancy?
New World Dan|2.7.08 @ 3:56PM|#
That interest is paid in exchange for capital, which is used
to produce goods and services. Try learning about economics before
making dumbass, isolationist statements...
Or rather, it's paid in exchange for capital which was used to
build bridges to nowhere, paid for farmers to not grow food, paid
people to deliberately not work and paid to kill people in other
countries raising the cost of fuel worldwide. Yeah, that was a
smart move on our part. Then taking money from people who might
have put it to a more productive purpose to pay the interest. Oh
yeah, and to top it all off, we still have to pay that capital
back. The joys of mortgaging your future.
|2.7.08 @ 3:56PM|#
"I just think that economics doesn't provide much incentive for
teenagers to avoid sex"
Exactly, economic doesn't provide that incentive because the
economic consequences of having a child has been taken away by
government welfare programs.
Rhywun|2.7.08 @ 4:22PM|#
I have to admit, I'm not entirely clear how a text tag is
useful for blind folks.
It's not. It is useful, however, when you turn images off or when
you're using a text-only browser. Adding these tags is standard web
practice.
How much harder it is for these children to succeed in
school-and in life.
I'm so sick of this line of reasoning. I was one of four kids
raised by a single mom and I turned out fine, thank you very much.
Instead of belittling a whole class of people, why not focus
instead on improving schools and job prospects for people who find
themselves in such an unfortunate position?
|2.7.08 @ 4:23PM|#
You don't think there are economic consequences for a teenager
who gets pregnant in 2008? Pretty damn gigantic economic
consequences?
Wow.
|2.7.08 @ 4:29PM|#
Since the Republican race is over I guess I'll do my best to stop Billary next Tuesday.
|2.7.08 @ 4:42PM|#
Most people who use pornography regularly are not promiscuous - sadly - or even sexually active, which is why they are forced to use pornography. High status alpha males like Romney, who could bang half the women he meets, lecturing us on the dangers of porn is like Rush Limbaugh lecturing Ethiopians on the dangers of gluttony.
|2.7.08 @ 4:44PM|#
Joe,
you don't think the economic consequences are softened greatly by
welfare programs?
|2.7.08 @ 4:57PM|#
I didn't know they made porn for black babies.
You've never seen "Our Gang(bang): Buckwheat and Stymie Do
Darla"?
|2.7.08 @ 5:07PM|#
You've never seen "Our Gang(bang): Buckwheat and Stymie Do
Darla"?
There's a Spanky joke in there somewhere.
|2.7.08 @ 5:53PM|#
Like most economics, change occurs at the margins. If the
consequence of getting pregnant but not being married is
catastrophic -- you wind up homeless or hooking or otherwise having
a real hard life, some women/girls will be afraid enough to insist
on just oral sex, or being more diligent about contraception, or
making damn sure their partner cares enough about them to marry
them if they get knocked up, etc. Some won't, but the incidence of
unmarried pregnancies will be lower. This is what happened prior to
the expansive welfare state.
Now, bad things still happen to pregnant unmarried women, but
generally not catastrophically so. You can scrape by. So, more
women take more chances sexually than they would without this
safety net, and you get more unmarried pregnancies.
It's like the difference between the maintenance regimes for cars
versus small personal airplanes -- people tend to be more slipshod
about car maintenance, because if the engine dies you pull over to
the side of the road and call a tow truck. OTOH, if the engine dies
in your single-engine plane, you die too, so you're likely to be
WAY more anal about aircraft maintenance than with your car.
|2.7.08 @ 6:08PM|#
Most people who use pornography regularly are not
promiscuous - sadly - or even sexually active,
Well, not with other people.
Metal Messiah|2.7.08 @ 6:21PM|#
Typical conservative christian blather: Oppose free speech and
blame everything on porn. (Or gays. Or abortion.)
Though it is ironic coming from a guy who probably has a whole
harem of wives hidden away in a cabin in the backwoods of Utah.
rvturnage|2.7.08 @ 7:32PM|#
The time period you reference, for example, was marked less by a change in birthrates among teen mothers as by a delay in marriage and increase in divorce. In 1950's, teens were more likely to give birth (almost twice as likely as today, for example), but they were also more likely to be married.
Tacos mmmm, you misunderstood my point. Perhaps because I used
"pre-marital" instead of promiscuous (which is what I should have
used). My point was that the 60's "sexual revolution" desimated
families by encouraging sex outside of marriage and sexual freedom
without regard for long term consequences. I'm not pointing to teen
age pregnancy, so much as to children being born to single mothers
and, as you say, an increase in unwed mothers by divorce. The
social stigma of promiscuity was lifted --glorified in the free
love era and subsequent years-- and the family unit collapsed. That
embrace by pop-culture removed the social incentives for the family
unit. That, combined with the financial incentives that Pinnette
has been talking about has made it much more difficult for the
under-priveleged, especially minorities who were the hardest hit,
to help themselves out of poverty by fostering the continuation of
bad cultural decisions that helped get them there.
|2.7.08 @ 7:57PM|#
"By the logic of this paragraph, you download a two minute clip
of girl-on-girl action, and the next thing you know there are
little black babies popping up everywhere, wishing that George
Washington was their daddy."
Not like in the old days, when black babies were popping up
everywhere, and Thomas Jefferson WAS their daddy.
|2.8.08 @ 12:11AM|#
A nation built on the principles of the founding fathers
cannot long stand when its children are raised without fathers in
the home.
Let see here Mitt.. Hamilton was a bastard... literally. Jefferson
sired illegitimate kids with his slaves. Franklin also had kids
with women he was not married to AND wrote what would have been
considered pornography (See "The Speech Of Polly Baker," and
"Advice On The Choice Of A Mistress") at the time.
You're backing out of the race, Mitt. There is no sense of
pandering to the X-ian Right with conservative historical
revisionism (i.e. the Founders as Evangelical Christian sages)
anymore.
|2.8.08 @ 12:35AM|#
Don't you get it!? It's not pornography, it's "tolerance for
pornography." That means that everyone who doesn't actively despise
it and work to eliminate it is guilty of contributing to
illegitimate children.
And these are people who claim to oppose political correctness?
Conservative, heal thyself.
|2.8.08 @ 2:59AM|#
KMW, get a grip on reality. Romney engages in some hyperbole and
moralizing... BFD; the guy is a politician and a devout Mormon.
What do you expect.
Romney's larger points are all valid and correct: fathers are
important; the mother/father family unit is the basis of society;
deviation from the full family unit leads to greater troubles for
society.
Frankly, I think you have to be nearly idiotic NOT to see the truth
in such observations.
|2.8.08 @ 4:14AM|#
"Frankly, I think you have to be nearly idiotic NOT to see the
truth in such observations."
Just to clarify, I am not saying that KMW is an idiot. I am using
"you" in the generic sense.
|2.8.08 @ 9:55AM|#
I'd say lots of young girls are having sex, but aren't most of them on the pill, or their partners use condoms which have almost become cool because they represent the sex someone is about to have? Are there more teenage pregancies now than there were 20-30 years ago when the pill wasn't as common and Trojan ads weren't all over the place? Maybe I'm wrong but these are my observations. Now, in their 20's girls might be more likely to get pregnant without being married but other reasons apply. They are more likely to be in committed but non-married relationships. Some work out, some don't.
Neu Mejican|2.8.08 @ 10:31AM|#
wayne,
deviation from the full family unit leads to greater troubles
for society.
Which deviations matter?
Serious question.
|2.9.08 @ 4:06AM|#
"Which deviations matter? "
All of them. Anecdotes such as, "I was raised by a single mom, and
I am fine" are just that, anecdotes.
The best environment for kids, i.e. a family, is a heterosexual
parented household. Mothers are important, and so are fathers.
Stormy Dragon|2.9.08 @ 11:46AM|#
>would hate pornography and out-of-wedlock
>marriage?
What exactly is an out-of-wedlock marriage?
incomgruities|2.10.08 @ 1:40AM|#
It's late, I'm playing on-line poker, and I'm about half
schnokered so my apologies if someone already commented similarly
but there are quite a few comments here... I skipped some.
Given the oft-repeated slander that Romney has flip-flopped on key
"conservative" issues, I'd say Romney's comments sound like
anecdotal evidence as to where he really stands on abortion. These
poor black kids don't stand a chance anyway, right?
Moral indignation aside, looking forward we need a lot of babies
coming on line in the next twenty, thirty years to pay for all the
stuff we post-boomers have been paying for but are not going to get
if there are not a bunch of new hard-working people to pay for
it.
What difference does it make if kids are gay, straight, bi, TG/TS,
Furries, dom/sub, voyeurs, copraphiliacs, necromongers, vampires,
or porn stars specializing in all the above as long as when they
grow up they are gainfully employed and are kicking in to our
retirement. I'm not picky who pays anymore.
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